4impact capital invests in FLTRD

4impact capital led a pre-seed round of more than 500,000 euros in FLTRD in October 2026, joined by angel investors from the consumer goods industry, in a minority investment supported by the European Union through the InvestEU Fund. Based in Utrecht, FLTRD runs an app that tells shoppers how processed a product is. Scanning a barcode in a supermarket returns the product’s PureScore, a rating the company built on three elements: the ingredients, counting added sugars, fats, salt, additives and refined components stripped of their nutrients; the processes applied, from heating and extrusion to hydrogenation, which alter the structure of the food; and organic certification, which lowers pesticide residues. The app then proposes less processed alternatives on the same shelf. It covered more than 150,000 products from seven supermarket chains and had over 35,000 users in the Netherlands. The subject has moved from nutrition journals to policy. More than 70% of products on Dutch supermarket shelves are ultra-processed, and a Lancet series published in November 2025 linked their rising share of diets worldwide to chronic disease. In July 2026 the European Commission asked its scientific advisers how the Union should define ultra-processed food, with their advice due in March 2027, and it approached co-founder Anke Kuik for her expertise. That is what the investor was buying. If a definition is adopted and obligations follow, manufacturers and retailers will need a way to measure the processing of their own products, and the dataset and methodology FLTRD built for consumers become something it can license to them. The company holds both the scoring system and the product database behind it.