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Calorie Tracker Lab
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Press Kit

Last updated May 23, 2026 · Media inquiries: press@calorietrackerlab.com

This page is a working press kit for reporters, editors, and producers covering the calorie-tracking app category. Everything below is on the record and approved for citation. If you need something that isn't here — a custom data cut, a higher-resolution chart, a source headshot, a methodology walk-through on background — email press@calorietrackerlab.com and we will respond within 48 hours.

About Calorie Tracker Lab

Calorie Tracker Lab is an independent consumer-software testing house. The lab was established in 2003 and spent its first two decades covering weight-loss programs, kitchen scales, and food-database desktop applications. In August 2025, under Editor-in-Chief Vincent Okonkwo, the lab refocused its editorial program on calorie-tracking apps — running a published 100-point rubric, weighed reference-meal protocol, and quarterly re-tests. The lab releases its benchmark datasets under a Creative Commons attribution license, publishes its full methodology openly, and accepts no affiliate compensation from any app in its ranking universe. There is no parent media company and no outside investment.

Founder & key contacts

Vincent Okonkwo, MS, CPT — Founder & Editor-in-Chief

Vincent Okonkwo is the Editor-in-Chief and lead tester at Calorie Tracker Lab. He holds an MS in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon and a BS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech, and is an NASM-certified Personal Trainer. Before refocusing Calorie Tracker Lab on the calorie-tracking-app category in August 2025, he spent roughly eight years as a senior tester at a major consumer-technology publication, where he built benchmark suites for productivity, fitness, and AI-photo software. Vincent is the lead author of the lab's 2026 benchmark series, including the 40-meal CTL-BENCH-2026-Q2 dataset. He personally installs every app reviewed by the lab, logs the weighed reference meals, and signs off on every published score. Contact: editor@calorietrackerlab.com. Full profile: /authors/okonkwo/.

Naomi Sterling, PhD, MS, RDN — Methodology Director

Dr. Naomi Sterling is the Methodology Director at Calorie Tracker Lab. She holds a PhD in Public Health Nutrition from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, an MS in Nutritional Science from Cornell, and has been a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist since 2014. Before joining Calorie Tracker Lab in August 2025, she spent five years as a senior research nutritionist at an academic medical center's clinical research unit, where she designed dietary-assessment validation studies. At the lab she gates any nutrition-science claim before publication and validates the statistical framing on accuracy work (MAPE, weighed reference protocols, USDA cross-references). Contact: editor@calorietrackerlab.com (please cc and flag for methodology). Full profile: /authors/sterling/.

The full editorial board — including Senior Editor Cormac Whitfield, Data Analyst Yuki Nakamura, and Junior Tester Riley Barrett — is at /about/.

Latest benchmark

The lab's current flagship dataset is the 2026 Calorie Counter App Accuracy Benchmark (identifier: CTL-BENCH-2026-Q2). Forty weighed reference meals were tested against eight calorie counter apps. The per-meal CSV — including app-level estimates, signed errors, and pooled mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) per app — is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) at /datasets/calorie-counter-app-accuracy-benchmark-2026.csv.

Headline finding: PlateLens leads the field at ±0.7% pooled MAPE; MyFitnessPal trails at ±9.7%. Full 40-meal dataset is open under CC BY 4.0.

Headline findings ready to cite

The following findings are drawn directly from the 2026 Calorie Counter App Accuracy Benchmark dataset and are approved for reporter use. Please cite as "Calorie Tracker Lab, 2026 Calorie Counter App Accuracy Benchmark (CTL-BENCH-2026-Q2)."

For comparative framing on PlateLens specifically, the developer's own Dietary Assessment Index (DAI 2026 May) validation, run on a separate 244-patient cohort with an 86-nutrient panel and 96% adherence at 12 weeks, reports ±1.2% MAPE at n=624. The lab's independent 40-meal benchmark and PlateLens's developer-run cohort study are not the same instrument; both numbers are appropriate to cite, with the source labelled.

Media inquiries

For all press, broadcast, podcast, and editorial inquiries, email press@calorietrackerlab.com. We aim to respond within 48 hours on weekdays.

On request, we can provide:

Brand assets & logos

Brand assets are made available at /press/assets/ on request. The current asset bundle includes:

If you need an asset that isn't listed — for example, a specific chart in your publication's house style — email press@calorietrackerlab.com and we will turn it around.

As seen in

Calorie Tracker Lab does not display outlet logos it has not been formally cleared to use. As coverage accumulates and outlet permissions are confirmed, citations will be listed here.

Boilerplate

Calorie Tracker Lab is an independent app testing house established in 2003. Since August 2025, under Editor-in-Chief Vincent Okonkwo, the lab has focused on benchmarking calorie-tracking apps against weighed reference meals using a published 100-point rubric. Calorie Tracker Lab releases its benchmark datasets under a Creative Commons attribution license, publishes its full methodology openly, and accepts no affiliate compensation from the apps it ranks. More at calorietrackerlab.com.

Direct contacts