Now, cell phones to tell you how safe your food is

Consumers who suffer from serious food allergies may depend on their cell phones to predict if it's safe for them or not.

Nestle is working with researchers at Deakin University in Melbourne and the Australian branch of international barcode standards body GS1 to trial an iPhone application.

The application will scan barcodes or read fine print information that's usually not legible - and call details form a database to display it on the cell phone.

Associate Professor Caroline Chan said GS1's barcoding system contained valuable product data such as weights, volumes, and information about packaging materials and prices.

"We wanted to really harness all this information on the barcoding system and team it up with detailed product information provided by Nestle to give consumers a tool that had the potential to improve their health and raise public awareness," Stuff.co.nz quoted Chan as saying.