How Jaini works

A plain-language explanation of the technology and data behind Jaini.

Step 1: Scan or enter a barcode

You point your phone camera at a product barcode (UPC-A 12-digit or EAN-13 13-digit), or type it manually. The barcode number is extracted on your device. No image is ever uploaded to our servers.

Step 2: Barcode lookup

The barcode number is sent to Jaini's API. The API searches a database of over 1.5 million products sourced from Open Food Facts, USDA FoodData Central, and other public food databases. If a match is found, the product name, brand, and ingredient text are retrieved. If not found, Jaini queries multiple public food databases in real time to try to find the product.

Step 3: Choose your mode

Jaini's verdict depends on which mode you have selected. Different Jain communities and occasions follow different standards — tap the mode name at the top of the screen to switch.

Mode	Who it's for	Key differences
Everyday Jain	Daily use for most Jains	Avoids all meat, fish, and eggs (Meat Detected). Onion, garlic, and root vegetables (potato, carrot, etc.) flagged as Jain-Restricted. Honey flagged as Jain-Restricted. Yeast treated as acceptable (Jain-Friendly).
Temple Mode	Temple visits, religious occasions	Stricter than Everyday. Honey flagged Jain-Restricted. Yeast and fermented ingredients flagged Jain-Restricted. Above-ground green vegetables allowed.
Paryushan Mode	Paryushan & Das Lakshana periods	Most restrictive. All green leafy vegetables, sprouts, and multi-seed fruits flagged Jain-Restricted. Honey flagged Jain-Restricted. Follows the strictest Paryushan dietary norms.
Greens+	Jains who also avoid green vegetables	Like Everyday Jain, plus above-ground green vegetables (spinach, cabbage, broccoli, etc.) are flagged Jain-Restricted year-round. Honey flagged Jain-Restricted.

Step 4: Ingredient analysis

The ingredient text is analysed by Jaini's ontology-driven verdict engine — a knowledge base of over 230 ingredient entries and 600+ ingredient name aliases. Each ingredient in the product's label is matched against this knowledge base and classified:

Meat Detected (Red): Clearly non-Jain ingredients — meat, poultry, fish, seafood, lard, gelatin from animal sources, carmine (E120), shellac (E904), insect-derived ingredients, and eggs.
Jain-Restricted (Yellow): Ingredients that your selected mode restricts — root and underground vegetables (onion, garlic, potato, carrot, radish…), honey (restricted in all modes), or in stricter modes, fermented ingredients, green vegetables, and sprouts.
Uncertain / Ambiguous (Orange): Ingredients with ambiguous origins that require label or manufacturer verification — for example, "natural flavors," "enzymes," "mono and diglycerides," "L-cysteine," or "cultures."
Jain-Friendly (Green): No flagged ingredients were found in the available data for your selected mode.

When multiple flagged ingredients are found, the result reflects the most serious concern (Red takes priority over Yellow, which takes priority over Orange).

Step 5: Result and confidence

The result is returned with:

A status label matched to your selected mode
Reason chips showing exactly which ingredients triggered the status
A one-sentence explanation
A confidence level — High (ingredient list was clear and complete), Medium (some uncertainty), or Low (ingredient data was sparse or ambiguous)
An exactness indicator — Exact when no ambiguous ingredients were active, Ambiguous when one or more orange-level ingredients are present
A per-ingredient breakdown showing how each ingredient was classified

Community verification

After viewing a verdict you can tap "Looks right" or "Flag" to add a community signal. When 5 or more users have voted on a product, Jaini shows a community consensus badge alongside the result. These signals help surface products that may be misclassified and improve accuracy over time.

What Jaini cannot do

Verify the accuracy of ingredient data provided by manufacturers or third-party databases
Detect cross-contamination or shared manufacturing equipment
Account for regional product formulation differences (e.g. a product sold in India may have different ingredients than the same brand sold in the US)
Guarantee that a product hasn't changed its recipe since the database was last updated
Provide religious rulings — Jaini gives informational guidance based on commonly observed Jain dietary restrictions, not a fatwa or authoritative religious opinion
Cover every product — coverage is strongest for products sold in the US, UK, and Europe; Indian and other regional products are less consistently covered

Data sources

Open Food Facts: A free, open, collaborative food database (openfoodfacts.org) — the largest source, covering products worldwide
USDA FoodData Central: The US Department of Agriculture's food composition database
Additional public sources added over time

Ingredient data is provided by Open Food Facts contributors and food manufacturers — Jaini does not independently verify it. Always check the physical product label for the most accurate and current information.

How to help improve Jaini

Coverage improves when the community contributes. You can help by:

Using the "Looks right / Flag" buttons after each scan to verify verdicts
Adding missing Indian products directly on openfoodfacts.org — products added there are automatically picked up by Jaini
Reporting incorrect classifications using the "Report incorrect classification" button
Emailing hello@swapncore.com with corrections or suggestions