“Meal planning is a form of self-care that nourishes both your body and mind.” 

 Jessica Levinson

Are you tired of the daily dinner dilemma? Imagine how convenient it would be to have a private chef at your fingertips. All this can be possible with a Meal Planner App like Plan Meals. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the exciting world of app development as we explore how to develop a Meal Planner app – just like the renowned Plan Meals app.    

Say goodbye to mealtime worry and welcome to a tasty, effortless alternative that puts you in control. From planning breakfasts to crafting gourmet dinners, we’ll unravel the steps to develop a meal planner app that caters to your taste, schedule, and lifestyle. 

Join us on this journey to not only revolutionize your dining experience but also embark on an innovative app-building adventure. Let’s dish out convenience together!

What is the Plan Meals App?

A Plan Meals app is a mobile application designed to help users organize and streamline their meal planning process. It offers features such as recipe suggestions, grocery list creation, customizable meal calendars, and nutritional information. Users can select recipes, arrange them for the week, generate shopping lists, and track their dietary goals. Also, the app aims to simplify meal preparation, enhance efficiency, and promote healthier eating habits by offering convenient tools for planning, managing, and executing meals. 

How Does a Meal Planner App Work?

When a user first opens the app, they’ll be greeted with a clean and intuitive interface. To get started, they can either browse through a collection of delicious recipes the app offers or import their own favorite recipes. When they locate a recipe they like, they just need to tap on it to examine the specifics. 

To create a meal plan, navigate to the calendar section. Here, they’ll see a weekly or monthly calendar layout. Users will select a day they want to plan for, and a list of meals will appear. Also, users can then start populating each meal slot with recipes by choosing from the ones they’ve saved or searching for new ones. 

However, the application will create an automated shopping list for them as they add items to meal menus. This list includes all the ingredients they’ll need for the selected recipes. Users can review the list, check off items already at home, and even make adjustments if needed.

Moreover, once the user finalized a meal plan and shopping list, they can save it and set reminders for cooking and preparation times. The app can send notifications to remind you when it’s time to start cooking a particular meal or when to begin defrosting ingredients.  

Additionally, many meal planner apps offer nutritional information for the recipes users have selected, helping them keep track of calorie intake, macronutrients, and other dietary goals.

Benefits of Meal Planner App like Plan Meals

The advantages of a meal planning app like Plan Meals are highly sought after by people. Meal planning apps are constantly being downloaded and the number is growing. This has enabled a customized approach to meals based on diet preferences, nutritional value, and easy-to-prepare meals. Here are some of its benefits:

1. Pre-Planned Meals

The app allows you to plan meals and get them delivered to your fingertips, with exact nutrition and portion sizes based on your preferences and health. The app allows users to access data on upcoming meals anywhere.

2. Monitor Your Goals

You can monitor your progress toward your goal with the help of an app that helps you plan your meals. According to your tastes for nutrition and exercise, the specially designed meal plan may assist you to grow or lose weight, muscle, etc. Apps that plan meals synchronize them with the required nutrients and essential ingredients.

3. Choose to Add or Skip Meals

You can add recipes, creative ideas, and photos of your meals to the app. If you have to skip a meal because of an unplanned lunch or dinner, it is possible to do so. On the apps for meal planning, you can easily skip a meal and move on to the next one.

4. Grocery Shopping

Apps that help you plan your meals are a great way to save money on groceries. You can easily create a list based on the days that you need to buy the items. Also, you can choose the day and the app will update the list with the exact amount of ingredients needed for the recipes.

5. Unfold New Recipes

You can learn and try new recipes on the app. Also, you can certainly improvise the recipes to suit your needs and preferences. You can use meal-planning apps to experiment with new flavors and healthful ingredients.

Top 5 Popular Meal Planner Apps

Meal Planner Apps	Available Platform	Downloads	Ratings
Paprika	Android | iOS	100K+	4.9
Mealime	Android | iOS	1M+	4.6
PlateJoy	Android | iOS	50K+	3.9
Eat This Much	Android | iOS	1M+	4.4
Prepear	Android | iOS	100K+	3.5

1. Paprika

This popular app has a built-in recipe manager, menu planning, and other features. This app uses the latest technology to organize your recipes using a customized browser extension, compatible recipe tracking, and advanced technology. Paprika is the best recipe meal planner app that creates a customized grocery list based on the recipes you have saved, according to your taste and diet. This app does NOT provide nutritional information for the recipes you have saved.

2. Mealime

This is one of the most user-friendly meal-planning apps, with modern technology and features. This app uses top-rated recipes that can be made in under 40 minutes. This 21-day fix meal planner app syncs recipes according to health benefits and allergies. The app’s major flaw is that the majority of recipes and nutritional values are only available in its premium version.

3. PlateJoy

This is the top-rated app for meal planning that will help you reach your weight loss goals by providing balanced nutrition and delicious recipes. This meal and grocery planner app is attractive with creative features and premium features. All recipes have nutritional information with a healthy option. This app has only one limitation: it doesn’t allow you to create a recipe that is personalized according to your preferences.

4. Eat This Much

This is a well-known meal-planning app with a calorie calculator and expert analysis of your body’s nutrition requirements. It contains a recipe database that includes macronutrients and nutrients according to weight, age, health, and other factors. This app’s only downside is that the free version has limited access.

5. Prepear

Prepear, the most popular meal-planning app, has a database of preset recipes that can be entered manually or online. Each recipe has a nutritional breakdown that provides a brief description of the ingredients, preparation, and recipes. This is also a diabetic meal planner app that is user-friendly with smooth features and premium features. 

Must-Have Features to Develop a Meal Planner App

 

After the Covid-19 phase, the healthcare, nutrition, and diet industries have reached a new benchmark. Reports indicate that 36 percent of Americans prefer to prepare their own food using meal planning apps. An on-demand meal planner app development team should provide key features that are customized. Here are some meal planner app development features that you must integrate into your meal planner app like plan meals:  

1. User Panel 

• Registration

Diet planning apps benefit from social media integration during the login process, just like other apps. A questionnaire can help users create their own user profiles. 

• Calorie Counter

It can be expensive to integrate a QR code into an application that allows users to scan the code and get the calorie information of a product. However, we recommend that users enter the calorie information manually at an MVP stage.

• Recipe Collection

This feature is attractive and creative to attract users. Apps should feature simple, tasty recipes that are easy to prepare and contain healthy ingredients. Also, the recipe should be adapted to the user’s location, taste, and diet preferences.

• Weekly Meal Planning

These features are helpful in many ways. Users can plan meals for the week ahead and enjoy a stress-free cooking process. With the assistance of this function, customers can plan their meals for the following week and enjoy effortlessly cooking.

• Offline Accessibility

Modern food tech apps do not only focus on diets and nutrition. Additionally, offline accessibility is now a basic requirement in meal-planning applications. Offline accessibility allows users to access a collection of saved recipes. Also, users who are on the go or in locations without access to the internet might benefit from offsite availability.

• Push Notifications

Use push notifications to alert users when the progress graphs are ready. You can also use them as a tool to market the application, keeping users hooked and bringing back users.

• Voice First Technology 

Voice-first technology is the future. Just like Grubhub, custom voice skills such as Alexa skill development and Action on Google development will upgrade and innovate your existing or new app project. So, you must hire full-stack developers who can integrate Alexa skills into your mobile apps. This will speed up food ordering, and provide estimated delivery time notifications.

• Food and Activity Logging

A nutrition app’s primary purpose is to track what you eat and do each day to stay healthy. Also, this is the next feature that a diet-planning app must have. It should include input fields that allow users to enter information about their diet and activities.

• Feedback and Rating

Encourage your users to rate recipes and give them a review. It might be a fantastic approach to receive suggestions and enhance your offering.

• Multi-language Support

Include support for multiple languages to increase the audience for your app. This will enable the application to be used by non-English speakers. 

2. Admin Panel

• CRM Integration

This helps administrators to keep track of users’ experiences within the application, and any problems they may encounter. They can also answer users’ questions in real time.

• Real-Time Analysis

This feature allows the admin to check live data, dashboards, reports etc. which can assist in making strategic business decisions.

• Dashboards

The dashboard for admins will show a summary of the performance of the daily meal planner app and any maintenance required.

• Food Listing

Include any carbohydrates or proteins that a fruit or vegetable contains. You will have a list of foods to choose from and to purchase for a balanced diet.

How Does Meal Planner Apps Make Money?

Obviously, return on investment and the ensuing revenue are what motivate every firm to enter a marketplace, so why should meal planning applications be any different? We are discussing monetization in this section. Here’s how the meal planner app development company may assist you fill your coffers: 

1. In-app Advertisement

Advertising is like those annoying party guests that you just can’t escape – they are everywhere. In addition, they’re an excellent source of income, as opposed to intrusive party visitors. You can work with your app developer to set up in-app advertising such as banner ads, interstitial ads, and video ads. Also, they are little billboards within your app and each click will bring you money! Keep it cool, and avoid annoying your users by displaying too many advertisements.

2. In-App Purchases or a Freemium Model

You can think of it as giving away a small taste and charging for the entire meal. Additionally, charge for advanced features and give away the basic ones. It’s a hit with users, and guess what else? It is a great way to make money.

3. Subscribe to a Model

Ah, that sweet, sweet sound. Users pay a regular fee to gain access to advanced features. Additionally, imagine it as an exclusive VIP pass for the best features in your app.

4. Paid App Services or a Premium Model

App monetization is comparable to a black-tie event. Your app is paid for upfront by users. Your app must be as smooth and feature-rich as James Bond’s meal-planning apps to pull it off. However, you can achieve this with the help of an on-demand app development company.

Technology Stack Required to Develop a Meal Planner App

Categories	The Use of Technology
Back-end	Java, .NET, Node.js (with Express.js)
Database	MongoDB (NoSQL), PostgreSQL (SQL), MySQL (SQL)
Front end	Angular, React, Vue.js
Mobile App Development	Swift (iOS), Kotlin (Android), React Native (cross-platform), Flutter (cross-platform)
DevOps	Docker (containerization), Kubernetes (orchestration)
Cloud Services & Storage	AWS and Google Cloud
Code Versioning	Git
Testing	Jest, Mocha
Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery	Jenkins CircleCI

How to Develop a Meal Planner like Plan Meals

It takes time and effort to create a scalable and long-lasting application enabling meal-planning activities. It must be created with each target user’s preferences taken into account. For this project, you cannot rely on just any random company. It’s necessary to have a competent, experienced iOS or Android app development company. You may see how to successfully develop a meal planner app like Plan Meals by following the steps we’ve listed below:  

1. Define the Scope of Your Project

Documenting details about the project scope, such as recipe management and meal planning, will streamline the functions of the app. Documentation of non-functional details, such as performance, scalability, and maintenance, is also required at this stage.

In order to develop a meal planner app like Plan Meals that is user-friendly, you must streamline platforms such as iOS, Android, and others, launch a minimum viable product, analyze market performance, then refine the platform. Free and paid versions must be classified according to their features and accessibility.

2. Select an App Architecture Pattern

The efficient operation of the app can be enhanced by a powerful app architecture pattern. As a result, the application may operate with improved efficiency, greater capacity and dependability, and tailored maintenance. App architecture should be chosen according to requirements. Microservice architecture is the best way to create mobile apps with a clean architecture.

3. Choose if You Will Offer Native Mobile Apps or Hybrid Apps

It can be difficult to choose hybrid or native apps that offer the best user experience with the highest level of security and performance. Also, the finest speed and the most cutting-edge security features are offered by native iOS and Android apps on a usable platform. 

You can create meal planner apps like Plan Meals which is a cost-effective app by choosing hybrid app development. This has low maintenance costs and meal planner app development cost. The performance of an app can be improved by choosing the correct programming language based on the app’s functionality.   

4. Choose a Cloud Platform

Cloud platform is the most advanced platform for the software development of the app. Certain MCSPs manage cloud management using Google Cloud Platform, MS Azure and AWS. However, the cloud platform, PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), manages the runtime environment, operating system, cloud infrastructure, and middleware functioning.

On the other hand, IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) only manages the cloud infrastructure. MBaaS (Mobile-Backend-as-a-Service) provides huge backend storage with handling the cloud infrastructure. It simplifies backend management for the software.

5. Find the Suitable Technology Stack

The performance of a meal planning app can be improved by using a technology stack that is compatible and suitable. The technological stack that can be utilized to satisfy the demands is described in the table above.

6. Plan To Secure Your App

High-level security should be maintained while managing user and payment details. Also, the data that needs secure access is described as follows: 

• Digital Signature
• Cloud platform security
• Securing APIs with encryption, quotas and throttles.
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
• Modifying application security risks that are prominent, such as injections, broken authentications, etc.
• Data encryption at rest and in transit
• Antivirus and firewalls 

7. Hire an App Development Team

Hiring an App development team can help you develop a meal planner app like Plan Meals which is futuristic, well-researched and that is user-friendly, and has intuitive features. Here are some details and tasks that require an experienced and expert meal planner app development services provider team.  

• UI/UX Designers
• Web Developers 
• Hire Dedicated Developers  
• Testing Experts
• DevOps Engineers 

8. Project Management and Execution: Development, Testing, and Deployment 

The project management and execution stage is important in the development of a meal-planning app. Also, meal planning apps require constant monitoring and accurate control of certain procedures. Here are some details:

• Designing technical solutions
• The UI/UX
• Custom meal planner app development
• Testing of the app 
• Deployment, with submission and launch to app stores
• Post-deployment assistance

Cost to Develop a Meal Planner App Like Plan Meals 

The cost to develop a mobile app like Plan Meals depends on a number of factors. These include the features of the app, the platform it is built on, the location of the team developing the app, and the amount of time needed to develop a meal planner app. 

On average, the cost of developing a meal planning app can cost you around $9000- $25000. It is suggested to contact a professional custom hybrid app development company.

Note that updates and maintenance will incur additional charges. It’s important to plan the development of the app and to consider its requirements. Also, this will ensure that the app is aligned with your budget and business goals.  

Conclusion

Making meal planner apps like Plan Meals provides an excellent opportunity to transform meal planning. The user-friendly design, meal recommendations, and integration of the grocery list improve the eating experience. However, to bring this vision to life seamlessly, it’s advisable to consider partnering with a proficient mobile app development services provider. Their experience can guarantee a quick and easy procedure for developing apps, resulting in a fruitful and useful end result.        

FAQ

1. What Are the Challenges of Creating a Meal Planner App like Plan Meals?   

The challenges to build meal planner apps include organizing a large number of recipes, implementing algorithms that recommend personalized meal plans, and integrating eCommerce features like a payment gateway and secure checkout. However, to provide accurate recommendations, it is important to stay up to date with the latest nutritional information and food trends.

2. How Long Does it Take to Develop a Meal Planner App For the Food Sector?    

It takes 700 hours on average to develop a meal planner app. Building hours can range from 300 to 1000 depending on the complexity and technology stack.   

3. How Much Does It Cost to Hire an App Developer? 

The cost to hire an app developer depends on multiple factors. For example, developers‘ location, expertise, etc. On average, the cost to hire meal planner app developer will be around $15-$25 or more.  

4. How Can We Reduce the Cost of Meal Planner App Development?    

In order to reduce the cost of meal planner app development, you must follow the below tips:

• Conduct research and set the objectives
• Offer the detailed app specification
• Select the right development team
• Choose the right platform 
• Develop an MVP
• Thoroughly test and improve the app
• Focus on UI/UX design  

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