Meal2Shop
Smart Meal Planner & Automatic Shopping List App
I’ve been working on a problem that’s bugged me for years: weekly meal planning and grocery shopping takes way too long, and I always spend more than I want to.
So over the past few weeks, I built Meal2Shop, an iOS app that helps you:
build meals and store your own recipes
plan your weekly meals in minutes
generate a smart shopping list automatically
organise your shop by your store’s aisle layout
track your own item prices and compare supermarkets
Basically, I wanted something that would save me time and make grocery shopping easier. Everything is based on your own ingredients, meals, and store layouts.
Why I built it
I tried a lot of meal planners and grocery apps, but none did all of this together:
let me build the recipes I actually use
automatically help decide the meals I should eat (so it's not always the same meals or a meal I haven't eaten in years and just remembered about)
auto-generate a shopping list from my meals (so I instantly know what to check in my cupboards without trying to remember back or dig through recipes on my notes app)
sort the list by the layout of my supermarket
track prices so I can spot when items go up
compare prices across other stores I shop at
So I decided to build the tool I wished existed.
What I’m looking for
I’d love feedback from the Indie Hackers community on:
Does this solve a real pain point for you?
Anything confusing or missing from the concept?
Would you expect anything else from a “smart shopping list” app?
Any ideas for improving the onboarding and first-run experience?
I released the version as it is right now, it still needs some tweaks to the UI in places and I have a few more features in mind to add too, but some initial user feedback would be great!
If anyone wants to try it, here’s the link (iOS for now):
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/meal2shop/id6755485224
And the landing page is here:
https://kingsroadlabs.com/Meal2Shop/
Happy to answer any questions about the build, the tech, or the process!
Thanks IH ❤️
8 Comments
Hi King,
I’ve explored Meal2Shop, and I really love the concept. Meal planning + automated grocery lists + price comparison is a strong value proposition, especially for busy individuals and families trying to save time and money.
As a UI/UX designer, I noticed a few opportunities that could significantly boost your user conversion and retention:
Strengthening the hero message so users instantly understand the core benefit
Improving visual hierarchy to simplify the feature-heavy experience
Adding a more guided onboarding flow that gets users to their first planned meal quickly
Using clear visual storytelling for complex features
Introducing stronger social proof to build trust
Clarifying pricing tiers and reducing friction in the decision process
I’d love to help refine Meal2Shop’s user experience so new visitors understand the value immediately and users stick around longer.
If you’re open to it, I can share a quick UX improvement outline or redesign sample to show what’s possible.
This definitely solves a real pain point. Meal planning takes mental energy every week, and most apps focus on recipes rather than the actual shopping workflow. The aisle-based sorting and price tracking sound especially useful because that’s where most grocery apps fall short.
For onboarding, maybe start people with a few sample meals/items so they don’t hit a blank screen and immediately bounce. The concept is strong though, and I could see this being sticky once someone loads in their recipes.
such a great idea and especially so since you started scratching your own itch
from experience, I can say that those solutions are usually that drive the more value since you already know the problem too well
one question: how do you keep track of what's already available and keeping that in sync with what you should be buying next?
great job and keep up the good work
Your meal planning app is impressive! It could really help users save time, money, and stress.
Meal2Shop sounds like a brilliant solution to a problem so many of us face! I love that it combines meal planning, smart shopping lists, store layout organization, and price tracking—all in one app. The ability to auto-generate a shopping list based on meals and track item prices is especially appealing. Excited to try it out! One question: do you have plans to sync across multiple devices or share lists with family members? That could make it even more useful for households.
Hi Beastinventer - yes I have Sign in with Apple (I will work on Android app if it's successful on iOS - there's fees to pay for both) and I've paid for backend hosting (not user's device storage), so it should sync onto multiple devices if you sign in with the same account.
Looking to add more features in the next weeks/months and one of them is the ability to link accounts between family members (users hopefully can enter/exit the family one). So this feature isn't quite there yet (for now you'd have to use your login on their device).
Aim is to try and get some users onboard with some initial feedback so that while I plan to build more and upgrade functionality within the app, I can concentrate on ideas that users actually want and need. I have a list of around 10 additional features/improvements in mind already - but the more the merrier!
This is huge !! Congrats
Thank you raj3, I'm looking to build extra features and do some improvements over the coming weeks
I'd be very grateful if you'd like to test it out, once you've tested free version - let me know and I can grant premium access to test that too (that's where most of the new features will be for)
Ideally the app should be completely useable and free for majority of users, but with great value in the premium for super users :)