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Apple icon
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MealUp+
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AI analysis
Inspiration
A lot of food apps make eating feel like work. You have to count calories, track macros, weigh portions, or follow strict plans.
We wanted MealUp to feel different.
The idea was simple: what if you could just take a photo of the meal you were already going to eat and get a few realistic ways to make it better?
No calorie counting. No complicated nutrition dashboard. Just small suggestions that are actually easy to use.
What it does
MealUp helps people improve the meals they already eat.
Users can take or upload a photo of a meal, and MealUp analyzes what is on the plate and gives personalized suggestions based on their preferences.
Instead of replacing the whole meal, MealUp focuses on small upgrades like adding more protein, vegetables or fibre, or making the meal more balanced.
Users can also save their meals into a visual food diary and look back at what they have been eating over time.
How we built it
MealUp is built as an iOS app.
The main experience is:
- Take or upload a meal photo
- Analyze the meal
- Get personalized meal upgrade suggestions
- Save the meal to your diary
- Build up insights over time
We use Supabase for the backend and authentication, AI for meal analysis and suggestions, and RevenueCat for MealUp+ subscriptions, entitlements, purchases, and restoring purchases.
Challenges we ran into
The biggest challenge was keeping MealUp simple.
It was easy to keep adding more nutrition data, scores and tracking features, but that started moving away from the reason we built it in the first place.
We also had to think carefully about how AI should be used. MealUp is for general wellness and suggestions, not medical advice, and we do not want the app to pretend it knows more from a photo than it actually does.
Another challenge was getting the full iOS subscription flow, App Store setup and RevenueCat integration ready while still finishing the product itself.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud that MealUp went from an idea to a real iOS product with a complete experience around taking a meal photo, getting suggestions and saving meals.
We're also proud that we kept the product focused instead of turning it into another calorie tracker.
Building the App Store subscription system, RevenueCat integration and paywall from scratch was another big part of getting MealUp ready for launch.
What we learned
One of the biggest things we learned is that more information does not always make a product more useful.
For MealUp, people do not need a huge nutrition report every time they eat. A few simple, relevant suggestions can be much easier to act on.
We also learned a lot about iOS development, AI product design, App Store subscriptions, RevenueCat and how much work goes into taking an app from prototype to something people can actually download.
What's next for MealUp
Next, we want to make MealUp more personalized over time so the suggestions get better at understanding what each person actually likes to eat.
We also want to improve the meal diary, weekly insights and the way MealUp learns from likes and dislikes.
The goal stays simple:
Make every meal better.
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