5 Mobile App Development Ideas For Food Businesses

The food business is always in demand. It never loses its appeal. The pandemic has opened new doors for food and food delivery businesses. The curve of online food ordering and home delivery shows a steep curve in the graph. There are tons of mobile app development ideas related to the food business. Not all of them can be successful. Are you planning to start a food-related business? Here are a few interesting mobile app development ideas for you to consider.

1. Mobile app development for home cooked food

The demand for home-cooked food is on a rise. The young urban population is very busy in this fast world. They have no time to cook their meals. Most of them were eating out. Some hired cooks to cook their food. The pandemic changed this completely. The restaurants were closed and the maids were not able to come for work during the lockdown. They started to order home-cooked foods.

Once they realized that home-cooked foods were healthy and prepared hygienically, most of them shifted to home-cooked food. A mobile app to bridge homemakers who love to cook and who want to earn money for home and the busy youth who are craving homemade food is sure to become a success. 

How does this app work?

You partner with the home cooks and let them register in your app. The users log in to the app and start their search for homemade food in their locality. When they find what they want, they place their order and make the payment. The food is delivered by a delivery person or in some cases the cook itself. The payment is made directly to the chef and you get a commission for every order. 

What are the requirements of a mobile app for home-cooked food? 

• Location based search with integrated maps
• Menus are categorized based on cuisine, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, ingredients and others.
• Estimated time of delivery of food
• Payment gateway with multiple options to make payment directly to the home cooks
• Customer reviews and ratings
• An impressive profile for cooks

2. Mobile app development for recipes

This is the era of food ordering and food delivery. So you may wonder what the need for a recipes app is in this era. However, the pandemic has changed things. Millions of people were locked in their homes during the lockdown and a majority of them found solace in cooking. People have discovered their passion for cooking and are interested in trying new recipes. Cooking has become a stress buster for many. 

It is true that there are many recipes on YouTube and too many cookbooks written by popular chefs. However, getting access to many recipes in a single app sounds like a good idea. There is no need to make an online search for recipes when you can get all of them in an app. So a mobile app development for recipes is a wonderful idea. 

Features of mobile recipe app

There are many recipe apps already in the app market. Hence you should make sure that your app is unique and engaging. What are some unique features that you can add to your mobile recipe app? 

• Save interesting online recipes automatically to the app just by a simple touch on the mobile screen.
• Save and print recipes
• Check nutrition details
• An extensive library of recipes
• Share recipes and images on the social media
• Ingredient names translated from English to regional languages
• Menu ideas for one day or one week
• Various diet plans with recipes
• Approximate cost calculation
• Calorie calculators for recipes
• Menus suggestions based on calories
• Push notifications
• Provision for adding new recipes
• Reviews and ratings for recipes
• Search filters based on dish type like salads, soups, and desserts, etc., cuisines like Chinese, Indian, and Italian etc., ingredients like chicken, potato, and milk etc., cooking methods like frying, boiling, and baking etc. 

3. Mobile app development for baby food planning and tracking

A baby’s nutritional needs are different from that of an adult. All first-time parents are confused if they are feeding their baby correctly. They have doubts if their baby is given the right nutritious food. The baby food app will answer all their queries and solve all their doubts. A mobile app planning and tracking the meal plan of a baby from 4 months to 2-3 years is a good idea.

It can be developed and launched by a start-up business or an existing restaurant or a baby food company. Mobile app development for baby food will help restaurants to increase traffic to their website and baby food companies to get more customers. Developing a mobile app for baby food is a profitable idea without any doubt.

Things for baby food app

What are the things to consider while developing a baby food app? 

The UX should be easy to use and record the activities of the baby. It should be easy to navigate. It should enable offline usage. Apart from these basic requirements, there are a few more important things to consider. 

• Every baby is different and the nutritional needs differ from one baby to another. Hence the app should provide a customizable option. There should be provision for creating a profile for the baby and get suggestions for diet plans and menus based on the profile.
• Recommendations from pediatricians and nutritional experts
• Provision for adding favorite recipes
• Categorization of menus based on age, food, weight and nutritional needs etc.
• Library of recipes and cooking tips
• Recipes based on seasonal ingredients
• Tracking foods that were tried already and add comments
• List of baby’s most and least favorite foods
• Tips for establishing a feeding pattern
• Diet plans to eliminate chances of nutritional deficiencies
• Automatic reminders for feeding
• Colorful icons for planning baby food
• Future plans on what to feed your baby 

4. Mobile app development to reduce food wastage

Food wastage is a major issue globally. Data shows that millions of tons of food are wasted every year. This is certainly a big concern. Sadly, tons of food goes wasted when there are billions of people who are starving. It is true that only a large system can solve this issue but technology can help to bridge a gap between the abundance and the needy.

Apps to decrease food wastage are very promising. Mobile app development for food wastage is not only effective in reducing food wastage but also saving money.  There are many options to reduce waste through an app. It is important to select the right option that will provide a good solution to solve the specific problem. 

The food wastage may be in any part of the food chain that includes retail, hotel, distribution, and home, etc. If you are focusing on food wasted by the end consumers at home, your app should focus on creating awareness. Avoiding food wastage at distribution and retail levels is more manageable than food wastage at home. Food wasted in retail and distribution may be due to overproduction of food, unsold foods in restaurants and supermarkets, and loss of food during transportation.

What are the features to be included in a food wastage app? 

• Feature for sharing the unused food in restaurants and homes
• Tracking expiry of foods in supermarket and give notifications
• Connecting to orphanages, old-age homes and, other centers where they accept charity
• Alerts and notification to consumers for sale at discounted prices by restaurants for leftover food.
• Alerts and notification to consumers for sale at discounted prices by super markets for food with lower shelf life.
• Reroute surplus food
• Recipes to use leftover food

5. Mobile app development for food delivery

 Food delivery apps are very popular these days as people prefer to have their food delivered to their doorstep and stay safe at home.  There are numerous food delivery apps already existing in the market. However, a location-based regional delivery app is sure to succeed if you make it unique and attractive. There are many more ideas like mobile app development for booking a table in your favorite restaurant, an app for calorie tracking, an app for grocery delivery, an app for fast food, an app for nutritious food, etc. 

Mobile applications are sure to make businesses more profitable if they are unique and built with perfection. The food industry is no exception to this. The apps related to food are not only useful to the sellers but the buyers as well. Mobile app development for the food industry will always be in demand as people have realized these apps make life easier for them.