Building an Organic Meal Subscription and Delivery App for a Sustainable Food Startup

The Client

Wyldr Food UG is a German startup that delivers organic cooking boxes to customers throughout the country. The company is on a mission to make healthy, sustainable eating more convenient and accessible for households. Since its launch, Wyldr has seen impressive growth, now serving over 8,000 happy customers.

The Wyldr web platform is designed to simplify the process of planning, purchasing, and preparing organic meals. Customers can sign up for a subscription to receive regular deliveries of fresh, organic ingredients sourced directly from trusted vendors. These pre-portioned ingredients come with corresponding recipes, making it easy for customers to cook healthy, delicious meals at home.

In addition to its focus on organic food, Wyldr is committed to minimizing its environmental impact. The company employs eco-friendly practices throughout its operations to reduce the carbon footprint associated with grocery shopping and delivery.

Throughout the project, their technical expertise, industry knowledge, and adaptability have made them excellent partners.

We referred Binary Studio to two other clients who they now work with. I recommend being very open about your needs, even if you’re not really sure what you want to do. They are good at making suggestions for different options.

Building an Organic Meal Subscription and Delivery App for a Sustainable Food Startup-1

Jakob Klassen

CEO & Co-Founder

Building an Organic Meal Subscription and Delivery App for a Sustainable Food Startup-2 GERMANY

Objectives

Wyldr founders identified a gap in the market where users' nutritional goals and the demand for organic food were not being met by existing online delivery services. They saw an opportunity to address this by creating a service that combined personalized nutrition planning with organic food delivery.

As a startup in the initial planning stage, Wyldr needed a development partner that could provide technical guidance and help them turn their idea into reality. They chose to work with Binary Studio, a software development studio with a track record of successfully delivering complex projects and a marketplace app development expertise.

One of the key factors in their decision was Binary Studio Academy, a company's educational initiative for training high-skilled product developers through a hands-on, practical course. The Academy's focus on building MVP-like projects ensures that its graduates are well-prepared to tackle real-world challenges. Wyldr was impressed by Binary Studio's commitment to hiring the best talent from this program, as it gave them confidence in the quality of the developers who would be working on their project.

The main objectives of the partnership between Wyldr and Binary Studio were:

01

Finalize development roadmap

Collaborate closely with Wyldr's CTO to create a detailed plan for the application's development, establishing clear milestones and timelines.
02

Build a minimum viable product (MVP) in a short period of time

Develop an MVP to enable Wyldr to start testing their concept with real users as early as possible.
03

Provide ongoing support

Continue to support and maintain the product post-launch, focusing on refining the user experience to ensure the application meets the evolving needs of Wyldr's customers.

Solution and Outcome

The collaboration started with a product discovery phase led by Binary Studio's software architect. Working closely with Wyldr's CTO, we identified customer needs and turned them into a product roadmap and development plan for the subscription-based organic food box delivery application. Since Wyldr had already established a product vision and created design wireframes, we focused on crafting the system architecture and estimating the development timeline.
Wyldr chose PostgreSQL as their database, and Binary Studio recommended using TypeScript as the primary language for the entire application stack. It was decided to build the backend using Node.js, following the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture pattern. This approach promotes a clear separation of concerns and maintainability. For efficient and secure data persistence, Wyldr utilized TypeORM, an Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) library, in combination with PostgreSQL.
On the frontend, the team decided to use React and incorporate React Redux and Redux Saga to manage the application state effectively.
This combination of technologies provides a robust and efficient framework for developing interactive and responsive user interfaces while ensuring code modularity and reusability through a service module architecture.
To enhance the user experience across various devices, we agreed on developing a Progressive Web App (PWA) in addition to the main web application. PWAs are built using web technologies but offer features similar to native apps, such as the ability to be installed on a device, work offline, run in the background, and integrate seamlessly with the device and other apps. By creating a PWA, Wyldr could provide a comprehensive user experience without the need for a separate mobile app, making it a cost-effective solution for the project's early stages.

Node.js

Express

TypeScript

React

Redux

PostgreSQL

ChargeBee

Twilio

Stage 1
After completing the initial planning and discovery phase, Binary Studio assembled a team of three engineers to work alongside Wyldr's CTO on developing an MVP. The team built the web application and PWA from scratch, handling all aspects of the development except for the data structure and database, which were managed by Wyldr's CTO.
The development process was smooth and efficient, thanks to the effective project management and communication between Binary Studio and Wyldr. During the early stages of development, the teams held daily meetings to maintain progress and alignment.
Four months after the start of development, the initial version of the platform was released to users.
The Wyldr’s application features included:
- Personalized meal planning: Users can specify dietary preferences, such as vegan, low-carb, high-protein, gluten-free, etc., and the app recommends suitable recipes each week.
- Recipe cards and cooking guidance: Each order includes recipe cards with step-by-step instructions, making meal preparation simple and stress-free.
- Convenient ingredient delivery: All necessary ingredients are delivered in reusable, organic cotton bags within a chosen time frame across Germany.
- Subscription management: The app sends weekly reminders to users, prompting them to choose new recipes or pause their subscription with a single click.
The app's logic was quite complex, as it had to account for different cycles and vendor interactions. To streamline the order management and payment processes, Wyldr integrated with Chargebee, a subscription billing and revenue management platform. Additionally, the app seamlessly connects with the delivery service provider through an API integration.
Thanks to the app's well-designed onboarding process and the absence of major bugs, Wyldr has quickly attracted its first customers, who have expressed their satisfaction with the platform.
Stage 2
Following the successful initial release, the Wyldr application experienced rapid growth in its user base. As the product gained traction, the focus shifted to maintaining and enhancing the application to improve the overall user experience. This involved a series of key enhancements and optimizations across various aspects of the platform.
One of the primary areas of improvement was the user onboarding process. By incorporating additional filters and refining the overall flow, the team made it easier for new users to customize their preferences and find meal options that suit their specific needs.
Another core aspect of the application that underwent optimization was the recipe recommendation feature. Using the pg-boss library, a job queue library for Node.js applications that enables the scheduling of background jobs and tasks, the team enhanced the recommendation algorithm. It now considers more factors such as user preferences, previously selected products, highly reviewed recipes, and seasonal availability to generate personalized recipe suggestions for each user. This ensures that users consistently receive relevant and appealing meal options tailored to their individual preferences.
To further expand the recipe collection and offer users a more diverse range of meal options, Wyldr partnered with influencers in the food and wellness space. This addition to the platform provides users with inspiring recipes from trusted sources, keeping the content fresh and engaging while encouraging users to explore new culinary styles.
In addition to these enhancements, the team also optimized the generation of printed instructions for users, which are delivered inside the food boxes. By leveraging Next.js capabilities, they significantly improved the performance of this process, reducing the time taken from an hour to just 15 minutes and enabling the system to handle more concurrent users.
Throughout the ongoing development and maintenance of the Wyldr application, version control and compatibility remain crucial aspects. The platform's infrastructure relies on several frameworks and third-party integrations that require constant monitoring and updates to ensure smooth performance. By taking this proactive approach, the application stays stable, reliable, and compatible with the latest technologies.

Building an Organic Meal Subscription and Delivery App for a Sustainable Food Startup-11

Building an Organic Meal Subscription and Delivery App for a Sustainable Food Startup-12

Driving Change through Sustainable Food Delivery App Development

Wyldr's impact on the German food delivery market was recognized by EU Startups News, which featured the company as one of the startups driving change in the industry in 2023. By using technology to simplify the process of planning and preparing organic meals, Wyldr makes it easier for households to embrace a healthier and more eco-friendly lifestyle. The company's user-friendly platform has been a key factor in its success. Customers appreciate the easy ordering process, the flexibility of the subscription, and the high quality of ingredients and recipes.
Wyldr highly values their partnership with Binary Studio and our team's technical expertise, clear communication, and proactive approach to development. As a company that prioritizes sustainability, we at Binary Studio are proud to work with Wyldr, a startup whose mission and values align closely with our own.

About Binary Studio

Binary Studio is a boutique software development company, regularly praised for its unique blend of engineering excellence and product ownership that enables its clients to build robust and scalable software products.
With our development team made up of top 0.5% international tech talent, we build web and mobile platforms using Node.js, .NET, React Native, Flutter, and integrating AI and ML. We also offer full-cycle QA and project management services to ensure the efficient delivery.
Our clients see us as a trusted partner dedicated to turning visions into great products. This is proven by 200+ delivered projects, more than two decades of business excellence, and stellar customer reviews.

Contents