So whats the pain area ??
If you are happily married like me for last few years you must be dreading to answer following question every day आज जेवायला काय करू ? translated for my Non Marathi friends What should I cook for the dinner tonight ? in fact it could be one of the triggers for you know what ? 
however when you look at the core issue, the question is really genuine and its really tough to decide what to do every day for the homemaker !! and if she is a working professional then its indeed a huge pain area as she also need to juggle between her work, shopping for vegetables and consumables and still be creative enough to cook something unique everyday. Your family is also made up of diverse tastes and ages wherein your growing son needs food which can nourish his body ( and not just his taste buds 
your ageing parents require different kind of food mix and you and your spouse are struggling with the ever increasing kilos and grams which warrants for a balanced diet.
To live a healthy life you need to plan a complete and balanced food intake. Most of us follow the traditional eating habits which are settled in the respective culture based on the respective geographies. Though recently we have started venturing into other food tastes however thats still at a very less frequent behaviour mostly on the weekends or during holidays when we try some Chinese, Italian or 
continental preparations. We don’t do this on day to day basis and during our routine we stick to our staple food. Our routine food habits had been built over a long period of time based on our life style. If you notice though our staple food contents or ingredients have hardly changed however our life style has seen a huge change in last few decades. These days we don’t do much of physical work our ancestors use to do in the past, now we are more involved in sitting jobs which doesn’t help to burn calories. Our work schedules leaves little scope for doing physical exercises which will help burning the extra calories which makes us overweight and invites more health related complications.
Now you know where I am getting at, if we need to continue to live healthily and stay away from any aliments and when exercising is not in full control what we can definitely do is ‘Control what we eat’ and I see a huge business opportunity here for Mobile Application Developers.
A cross platform application ( Web, Mobile, Tablet ) across all the available Mobile Operating Systems ( IOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry ) suggesting meal plan for a month, quarter and even a year. While building this App help can be sought from Dieticians, Doctors ( Specially Nourishment Experts) a meal chart will be prepared based on the geography considering the availability of vegetables and other 
natural supplements. The entire meal cycle starting from morning breakfast, lunch, evening snacks, supper can be planned as per the regional classification of consumers ( In Maharashtra the planning would be made using Marathi cuisine however in South India the same can be changed to south indian cuisine ) The App will inform the home maker or the lady in charge of the kitchen whats the meal spread planned for next week and what she need to purchase to execute this plan ( Consumables such as vegetables, fruits etc ) Every day the app will give details of the dishes to be made for breakfast, lunch and dinner with the recipes ( Videos explaining the recipe and the preparation ) as well as nutritional details of the dish. While planning the menu care will be taken so that no dish gets repeated at leas t within a month’s time so that there always would be something new to eat each day. Before preparing the meal spread for the family, data related to family members, their age, if any special medical conditions such as diabetes etc can be mentioned so that the meal spread will have something to meet all the demands of each of the family member.
This App can be linked to the Food related blogs, forums and magazines wherein new content about new dishes could be pushed into the App regularly. A value added service such a dietician for consultation can also be made available through special subscription plans. The newly evolving food chains can also offer supply of vegetables at the doorsteps as per the specified meal spread for the week. These are some of the ways how you can monetise this App.
So my Mobile Application developer friends if you are interested to do something like this connect with me and lets make some dent in the universe 🙂
*Originally published at https://mandyisgreat.wordpress.com
asha chaudhry
mandar… i think you’ve hit something very interesting. i can visualise how difficult it can get!!
this reminds me of when i used to live in pune (single, working) – a lady used to deliver pre-cut vegetables in customised portions – she would have a couple of options – so you could decide what you want to cook!!
moving to your idea…
you would need a meal planner/s who can suggest more than a few options (be it state-wise cuisine or generic indian/non indian combos). parameters would involve different demographics (age/type of cuisine/veg/non veg/number of items/budget etc etc
you would definitely need to tie up with food blogs (am sharing this link with sameer malkani – the founder of food bloggers association, india (FBAI)
you would need to link variousl recipes (of the same dish) for sure (from different sites as different “curries” are prepared in different ways) e.g the maharashtrian/konkani way of preparing french beans is way different from the gujarati style 🙂
i could go on and on mandar… food is very close to my heart! i think this idea has great scope (don’t know if someone else has done it) – but it would involve a lot of variables…!
i’m gonna follow this post closely 🙂
asha chaudhry
also, mandar… a lot of homemakers would appreciate a daily emailer – not everyone is an appy person :)))))))
Mandar Joshi
Yes I agree with you Asha in fact its been a challenge we are facing every day at my Home and thats how I thought of this solution. Yes I am aware of the effort involved however I have a feeling that considering the value we would be able to build the effort would be worth it. At this stage I have just promulgated this as an Idea lets see what kind of response we get and honestly if someone is willing to work on this I don’t mind sharing the whole thought process I have about this besides I can also contribute in planning a business development strategy for this. Lets look out for like minded folks and lets see where it takes us !!!
Saraswathi Pulluru
If this materializes, I would the first one to download the app and implement it 🙂 All the best.
Smit Ganatra
Sounds great! Plus,food never goes out of fashion! 😀
About the app,the biggest challenge would be making sure the content does not lose it’s relevance.It has to be tailored extensively as different people are comfortable with different things.As long as this is taken care of,there is no reason why something like this should not work
Darshan Bhambiru
Meal Planning has always been a Good Question!!
We Eat so Badly, because we don’t know. We don’t have the Time to really Investigate!! Isabel Hoffmann
I hear about the same everyday (almost) at my place as well, then as you rightly pointed out the various choices, restrictions and tastes of the members makes it more difficult, though sometimes its just a routine with a few changes here and there, the major question still remains at Large!!!
The required selection of dishes based on Keywords used could be RSS feeds or recipes pulled from Food related Websites or participating bloggers too as a combined output to choose from appropriately which may also include the Composition of the Dish to be made and also the Recipe with Ingredients required and the Heath Factors with a Video if available showing the same too for those not Deft at Cooking as well or to learn a New dish and Surprise the Family too.
This Site helps answer a few Question Meal Plans – Frequently Asked Questions for Online or Offline model too if looking in that direction and not alone for an Information based App, albeit also covers Hostel and Community eating as well though this may be for the US Zones, but can be used as a Template to work on similarly tweaked / hacked for the Indian requirement too or again to make it compatible to any Global user for the Application to b e used later too, the underlying Things form the core and needs to be built on a larger base as well too.
With Ready to eat options now available which are Microwave ready just Pre-heat and ready to serve options also serve a Small part of the Busy Working Couples and people, have seen this Industry specifically develop and refine in the last 10 or more years when it started. Health Conscious could also use devices to know the Specs of the Food they are eating
This also would be helpful for a lot of those into the Home Food business to tap into the local Geo Location based customers in the Areas to their locations as well as to push Promotions and Branding in a direct to customers way with recipes and Answering specific question on a community forum as made available too, it would be also helpful to those in the Catering business and Hospitality services with Casual Meetings, Parties etc as applicable, or it could be a mix and match option from the various available too for pre-cooked or also Make your own Permutations with Leftover recycling or adding ingredients and making a new dish out of it too and become a Master Chef too 😀 with Fusion. Though at times the Sandwiches and the 2 Minute Noodles seem to be a Joy Kill but these are the things which really What we all go through at most times too. A Sample to check here Real Food Meal Plans
With Smart Apps now being used in t he Refrigerators, Microwave ovens, Washing machines to pre-order from the online stores could be a valid and viable option too, but with few reports of Spamming now showing up the hackers might be able to still get a lot of information which is already collated with these applications to make the Purchase using the Credit Debit cards stored for the purpose to enable the same as well. This could be a part of the App too, with security taken care of, makes a few steps easier too 🙂
It is a process more than something which could be tailor made or is made available ready too. Would Love to see this Develop! Make a Dent in the Unified Universe!! Good Luck!!!
Here is something which could Help in Planning and taking things further accordingly.
One such Application which can be checked or improved accordingly for Indian Customers
Anything Online could be assimilated and Collected at one place as required to be used. Though the options could be on a Fremium or Partly Subscription based too, this is definitely workable, with Participants being themselves Cooks or Bloggers or Both or None too.
PSST : Food based 3D Printers are making Waves too 🙂 Foodini by Lynette Kucsma
Just my 2 Cents !!
Cheers!!
Mandar Joshi
Thanks Darshan Bhai I was expecting a very detailed and thought provoking insights from you. You are right the form of this product can be different rather than an App it can be crowdsourced feed of recipes involving specific ingredients or nutrition values with a video walkthrough. Ideally the meal plan for the week would be prepared by keeping certain constants such as nutritional quantity desired and ingredients and based on these parameters recipes can be selected by the user from the recipe repository. Recipes would then be ranked by the users and based upon this rank they would be pushed upwards.
We can also get some good advertising revenue from the processed food companies as our users would be their direct customers.
Let the hundred flowers bloom like this 🙂 so that we can perfect this idea and its journey towards a product or a service begins.
Mandar Joshi
Yes I totally agree with you Smit and therefore as the discussion is progressing I am getting a feel that the content needs to be crowdsourced. What can be built is an algorithm to choose recipes based on the defined parameters such as ingredients or nutritional values. Lets continue this discussion so that all the aspects can be discussed here
Mandar Joshi
Cool so I have my first customer already 🙂 thanks for your appreciation and yes if at all the product is launched I shall see to it that you get your hands on it at the earliest 🙂
Darshan Bhambiru
Here are the Links for the Few Applications to check out 🙂
Meal Planning and Grocery List – Android
Meal Planning and Grocery List – iPhone
Food Planner for Android
Paprika Recipe Manager
MealBoard is a recipe-storage iPhone app that lets you plan your meals for the week and automatically generate your grocery list on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
Classic, lighter-side, diabetic-friendly, and gluten-free meal plans in 2, 4, & 6 servings are available.
Seven Online Meal & Menu Planning Tools
Top 7 Apps for Meal Planning
Amen!!
Mandar Joshi
Yes I was checking all those Apps while you were building the list 🙂 and yes indeed there are many apps around this idea however none are for Indian foodies. Besides we can also add some more features in these existing Apps e.g. If I am inviting my family friends for a dinner at my home this week end I shall ask them to suggest what should I cook for them 🙂 once I know whats their favourite dishes I can make changes in the menu which I have planned. In our idea more emphasis will be given to the balanced diet and square meal composition so that not only there would be uniqueness in the dishes we prepare but they are also heathy and good food for the body and soul 🙂
Sandeep Verenkar
Hey mandar, my wife has been working on a similar concept of a social experience around food and shall be launching a site and an app covering events about food, chef blogs, meal planner with email reminders( jus like our editor suggested ), home cooked item order mart .
asha chaudhry
mandar – sandeep is my neighbour in goa and is in mumbai every week!
he also attends all of the Open Houses. so i suggest you two connect whenever you plan a visit to goa/mumbai. i see great synergies here!!
sandeep – mandar is based in pune.
Mandar Joshi
Sure Asha I shall connect with Sandeep !!!