Understanding the new foods and ingredients search

We’ve upgraded the search algorithm in the Foods and Ingredients tabs to better understand what you type and what you actually mean.

This delivers more accurate matches, smarter filtering, and better-ranked results for reference foods across all workspaces. Search for your custom resources remains unchanged.

You don’t need to learn a new system, but understanding how search works can help you get even better results.

How your search is understood

When you type a search, we break it into meaningful parts and look for the best matches.

1. Search looks at:

• What the product is e.g. bread, yoghurt

• Brand names 

• Tags e.g. organic, gluten free, soy, flavours

Product type and brand matter more than tags so the most relevant items rise to the top.

2. What about plurals, spelling, punctuation and synonyms?

The search is designed to be forgiving:

• Plurals are handled automatically → biscuits and biscuit return the same results

• Common misspellings still work → mistyping zuccini will still find zucchini

• Punctuation is ignored → banana! will find banana

  • Percent symbols are preserved, so 100% juice works as expected

• Regional synonyms are supported → searching for cantaloupe will surface rockmelon

Tip: If a rare plural doesn’t match, try the singular.

3. How results are ranked:

Results are ordered by:

1. Relevance — best match first

2. Intent match — correctly interpreting terms like no sugar

3. Specificity — clearer phrases rank higher

4. Shorter names — used as a tie-breaker when multiple results are similar

This helps surface the most useful options faster.

Excluding ingredients & nutrients

Search now understands intent, not just keywords. This means you can exclude things by typing:

• -sugar

• no sugar

• low fat

• without salt

• sugar free

These all tell search you don’t want those things and results that don’t match your intent are pushed down or excluded. 

When you combine these modifiers with a food description, for example, gluten free cake — all cake options tagged as gluten free will rise to the top of the results.

Smarter phrase matching

Search recognises when words belong together:

• peanut butter

• fish fingers

• free range

These are treated as specific phrases, not just individual words, so results are more accurate and relevant.

Searching for an exact phrase

If you put words in double quotes, search looks for that exact text. This behaves the same way search worked previously.

Examples:

• "no sugar" → finds products with the exact phrase no sugar in the name

• no sugar → finds products without sugar

Use quotation marks when you want exact wording rather than filtering logic.

Quick tips for best results

• Use natural language → low fat crackers

• Use hyphens or “no” alongside the attribute with the food name to exclude things → no sugar lemonade OR -sugar lemonade

• Use quotation marks around the words for exact phrases → "99% cocoa" vs "99% cacao"

• Try simpler words if results don't match your expectations

• Use whole words → full cream milk instead of ful cre mil