EatWell Launches AI Platform to Transform Nutrition Tracking for Africans

Digital health startup, Eatwell Technologies, has launched an artificial intelligence-powered nutrition platform designed to help Africans make healthier food choices using data drawn from local diets.

The platform, EatWell AI, analyses meals, tracks food and physical activity and provides personalised nutrition guidance based on users’ health goals, dietary choices and health conditions.

The company said it is also seeking partnerships with healthcare professionals, providers, Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs), pharmacies, employers and government health programmes to integrate the platform into Nigeria’s preventive healthcare system.

Eatwell Technologies said the platform was developed to address a major gap in existing nutrition applications, which often rely on Western food databases and provide limited information on African meals.

At the centre of EatWell AI is a proprietary glycaemic index and glycaemic load database containing more than 2,000 African dishes, including jollof rice, egusi soup, amala, moin moin and suya.

The database is designed to help users understand how their food choices may affect blood sugar, weight and metabolic health.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Eatwell Technologies, Jon Emerenini, said the platform was built around the principle that preventive healthcare should start with everyday lifestyle choices rather than only after illness occurs.

“Healthcare cannot only begin when someone becomes sick. A significant part of better health starts with what people do every day; what they eat, how active they are and whether they understand the choices they are making,” he said.

Emerenini identified nutrition as an overlooked component of preventive healthcare in Africa, arguing that the absence of comprehensive data on local diets had made it difficult for digital health platforms to offer truly personalised guidance.

“Nutrition is the single most under-addressed lever in African preventive health, and it’s been ignored because nobody built the underlying data layer for how we actually eat,” he added.

Unlike conventional calorie-counting applications, EatWell AI is designed to provide nutrition information around African food patterns. Users can photograph their meals through an AI meal scanner, which identifies and analyses the food on the plate.

The platform also offers food and calorie tracking, personalised nutrition recommendations, fitness and activity monitoring, progress tracking and nutrition coaching.

Eatwell said the service could support people seeking to manage their weight, diabetes and hypertension, while helping users monitor their individual health goals and make more informed dietary decisions.

Emerenini described the platform as more than a consumer health application, positioning it as a digital infrastructure that could support preventive healthcare across the continent.

“EatWell AI isn’t just an app; it’s nutrition data infrastructure for Africa,” he said.

The startup plans to extend the platform beyond individual users by linking its tools with healthcare institutions and professionals.

Under the proposed partnerships, healthcare providers and other organisations would be able to use EatWell AI to provide digital support for nutrition, lifestyle management and preventive healthcare, allowing patients to monitor their food and lifestyle choices between medical appointments.

The company is also engaging government and health sector stakeholders on the possibility of deploying the platform through primary healthcare centres to extend personalised nutrition and lifestyle support to more communities.

Other potential partnerships include corporate wellness programmes, HMOs, pharmacies, gyms and telecommunications companies as part of efforts to broaden access to the technology.

Eatwell Technologies said its initial focus remained African food and nutrition patterns, but the platform was also being developed for international markets, particularly communities outside Africa that consume African cuisine.

The company said its long-term objective was to establish a continuous preventive health system in which digital tools complement the work of doctors, dietitians and other healthcare professionals.