Meal Planning App Development for a Leading Supermarket Chain

The Client

Azoft developed a custom app for meal planning for a leading supermarket chain in Nordic countries. Our client employs different marketing strategies to make business more profitable and always explores new means for better communication with consumers. For example, in order to increase customer engagement, our client’s official websites offer a dinner-planning service, including unique recipes and video tutorials.

“We are growing fast at the moment and become one of the top 3 app companies in Norway. A stronger partnership and growth with Azoft has become a crucial part of our growth strategy. We shifted our business from our Egyptian partner to you.” — CEO, Top 3 Mobile & Web App Development Company in Norway

The Scope

To develop a mobile meal planning application for our client’s web-based dinner planning service, so that supermarket customers could have access to it while shopping. Azoft was subcontracted to develop mobile applications for both Android and iOS platforms. The application also informs customers about discounts and limited-time special offers at the supermarket chain, therefore content needs to be updated regularly.

The Solution

For this project, we developed client-side mobile applications (iOS and Android) as well as a server-side. Mobile applications offer users the following features:

• Users can choose a recipe from the image gallery and move it to a calendar on the day they want to prepare the meal
• Choose the number of persons, adults, and children, for whom the meal will be prepared
• Overview of the shopping list with ingredients and their prices calculated taking into account the number of persons
• Make plans together with family members through one account either via a website or mobile apps
• Share recipes by email and SMS
• Watch video tutorials about how to prepare a meal
• Save favorite recipes

The solution includes a server-side for administrator use. The application’s content is regularly updated, so users always see the latest information upon opening the app. The app works both online and offline.

Technologies

iOS, Android, Web-services

The Challenge

During the development process, we encountered several challenges. The first issue we encountered was to implement a complex GUI which allows dragging and dropping objects (images of various dishes) to the calendar without scrolling through the gallery. To solve this issue for the Android app, we had to intercept touch events from the gallery and shift them in a global coordinate system. In the case of the iPhone app, we disabled TableView gesture recognizer. Another issue we encountered was arranging update and synchronization processes. We placed them in the background, so users can overview the app while it’s updating. Also, we had to use in-memory data caching and synchronize relevant lines of code between workflows.

The Outcome

The application was a great success right after it became available on the AppStore and Google Play. Our client now has an effective means to reach and communicate with the customer base. At the same time, shoppers have a useful interactive tool for planning their grocery shopping depending on what they are planning to cook.