Food Forage
A cross-platform meal-planning app that turns a sustainability ambition into a Sunday-night shopping list.
Sustainable eating is a values story. Most people just want to know what to cook on Tuesday.
Sustainability apps tend to lecture. Carbon footprints, ethical sourcing, supply chain detail: all true, all useful, none of it landing with the audience that just wants to plan the week's meals and hit the shops on Saturday.
The product hypothesis was simple. Lead with the meal plan, the recipe, and the shopping list. Do the sustainability work invisibly behind that surface: in which recipes get suggested, which ingredients land in the shopping list, and which retailers carry them. Make the values choice the easy choice, not the homework choice.
- The product leads with meal planning, not sustainability messaging.
- The shopping list has to be the artefact the user actually uses.
- Cross-platform from launch: iOS, Android, and web.
- Checkout flow integrated cleanly so the shopping list becomes an order without friction.
Inside Food Forage.
A weekly meal plan, opened in one tap
The home screen is the meal plan, not a values page. The user sees their week, the recipes, and the moment they're picking what to cook next.
A meal plan that lets the user swap, skip, or repeat
Recipes per day, with the option to swap a recipe, skip a meal, or repeat a favourite. The sustainability work happens in which recipes are suggested in the first place.
An auto-generated shopping list grouped by aisle
The shopping list is generated from the week's meal plan, deduplicated, grouped by aisle, and ready for the supermarket trip the user was already planning.
From shopping list to delivery, in a single flow
Where the user wants delivery instead of an aisle, the same shopping list runs into an online checkout flow. The list becomes an order without the user re-entering anything.
Lead with the meal plan. Do the sustainability work quietly underneath.
Food Forage opens on the user's weekly meal plan. Recipes are suggested with sustainability factors baked into the suggestion logic: seasonal produce, low-emission proteins, low-waste cooking patterns. The user does not have to know any of that; they just pick what looks good for Tuesday.
The shopping list is auto-generated from the week, deduplicated, and grouped by aisle. From there it either goes to the supermarket as a list or to checkout as an online order. The sustainability outcomes follow naturally from the suggestion engine without lecturing the user at any step.
- Meal-plan engine with weekly cadence, swap, skip, repeat.
- Recipe library tagged on sustainability factors: season, source, emissions, waste.
- Auto-generated shopping list with aisle grouping and deduplication.
- Checkout flow that turns the list into an online grocery order.
- iOS, Android, and web from day one with shared account state.
Thousands of downloads at launch. Sustainability outcomes without the lecture.
Three platforms at launch
iOS, Android, and web shipped together with shared account state. Users move between devices without losing their meal plan.
Shopping list is the artefact
The list is the surface users open most. The meal plan exists to feed it; the recipes exist to feed the meal plan.
Sustainability without lectures
Suggestion logic favours seasonal, lower-emission, lower-waste choices. The user gets the outcome without being asked to do the homework.
Launch reception
Thousands of downloads in the first weeks, with the meal-plan and shopping-list pattern landing exactly as the product hypothesis predicted.
How we delivered it.
Stack
Capabilities
Compliance
From scoping to live.
- Product designSustainability is not the headline; the meal plan is. The product asks 'what are we eating this week' and quietly does the sustainability work in the recipe library and the shopping list. Months 1-2
- Cross-platform buildiOS, Android, and web shipped together. Meal-plan engine, recipe library, auto-generated shopping list, checkout flow. Months 3-5
- LaunchPublic launch across all three platforms. Thousands of downloads in the first weeks. Month 6
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