Foodtech Secret Weapon: How to Develop a Useful Mobile App
In the practical world, the term “foodtech” encompasses all companies operating on the border between the technology sector and the food market. In other words, this is an integration of digital technology in all the spheres related to the production and delivery of food. Lately more and more “foodish” businesses are appearing all over the world: consumers can receive everyday food sets with recipes, track the calories and save time on trips to supermarkets.
According to Research and Markets, the global food tech market is expected to exceed $250 billion by 2022. Their report shows some of the major brands: Postmates, Domino’s Pizza Inc., DoorDash Inc., Eat24, GrubHub Inc. and others.
Besides, according to the latest research, there are several business models on the market today that are highly dominating: delivery of restaurant food and products from hypermarkets, and meal subscription boxes. The meaning of “foodtech” is becoming wider and covers more and more directions from day to day. Thus, the competition level is growing as well, using the mobile applications as its major instrument.
The App Age
The reason is rather obvious: mobile apps are… mobile! Lots of people can’t imagine their lives without smartphones today, so mobile apps are always with them on any trip. Apps are comfortable, simple, highly customisable and almost everyone can use them. The world has successfully entered the so-called App Age a few years ago, and that is just the beginning.
According to Statista the number of mobile app downloads worldwide in 2017 was about 178 billions and 205 billions in 2018. The forecast for 2022 year is about 258 downloads, so the increase is about 6% per year. The popularity of apps is growing enormously fast and the foodtech industry is one of the most involved one. Foodtech apps are represented in three categories: lifestyle, health & fitness, food & drink. That took more than 14% in total of the whole App Store in May 2019.
Still, the foodtech industry is developing slower than the entrepreneurs would like. Useful websites, food ordering applications and corporate systems for order distribution are often an exception to the rule, which can only be found in leading flagship companies that set the tone of voice for others.
Here are some reasons why foodtech apps will become more and more vital in businesses:
- Apps are very easy to use, there is no need to call a manager and place an order by phone. “Just a few clicks and you get what you want!”
- They are highly intuitive. Today UX (User Experience) design is one the most important parts of every project and modern designers know how to make any app simple and useful.
- Apps are the perfect instrument to interact with the customers and they are a great source of information for entrepreneurs. This can be attributed to features such as live notifications, integrations for calories count, personal area with lots of private settings like menu, ingredients and favorite courses. App owners can inform users of the actual discounts, special offers, updates and create other things that will let customers return to your company very often.
- The secret is out: everybody loves good service. You just have to create a high quality app and maintain it to be downloaded and highly rated among similar services. And that is exactly what lots of foodtech companies try to build their business around.
Today, the leading positions on the world’s foodtech market are taken by the USA and European countries. The main companies are GrubHub, Instacart (USA), JustEat, Deliveroo (UK), as well as Delivery Hero, Linas Matkasse (other EU countries). Each company has a useful and well designed mobile app, which is used to interact with the customer and gain profit. The question is, how to create a really good app?
The First Steps
Now you should realise that there are three general choices at the development stage:
- The first one is to develop a mobile app managing your own team of developers by yourself.
- The second way is to entrust the whole development process to an outsourcing IT company.
- And the third one is a hybrid development method that means that in-house team is working in collaboration with the outsourcing company.
An in-house development is an option, but it suits only specific industries and companies. Foodtech can hardly be considered among those industries — the apps needed require a professional approach, including different stages of development, quality assurance, and specific developers involvement. The majority of the foodtech companies have an IT department, but it is not one that can develop a complex mobile app at the snap of a finger. Even big companies realise that you just don’t spend your time and money on a thing that could be cheaply, quickly and more professionally outsourced.
The advantages of the second method of development cannot be underestimated and are well-known. Sometimes it is cheaper and more productive than the long in-house development. For example, the cost of a software solution developed by your own specialists can hardly be properly estimated. There are too many issues to be taken into account to get the final cost and that job is better left to a professional company. We have great experience in the development of mobile applications designed for the specific needs, so we can make the relevant assessments and offer different options for implementation of a project.
By the way, the cost of a project by outsourcing may vary from $5000 to $500 000, depending on the needs and the functions of the project and the client’s company influence. Considering SimbirSoft, the final cost of almost every project is calculated at the planning stage and all processes involved in the development are written in detail. It is important to mention that this cost includes our experience and the complex approach. That means that giving project to our company you get not only the “coding tasks” done, but the full development service that lets you concentrate on your business objectives and be sure that the job will be done in the best way. We always try not only to fulfil what is needed, but to delve into the project and develop a solution that will simplify business processes.
Considering the second method, you get access to advanced technologies and experienced professionals, and you get to concentrate on your own business objectives; you also get the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) version really fast, because all processes in the outsourcing company are established and automated.
In addition, it should be mentioned that the hybrid way of development is also rather popular and profitable. Hybrid means that the outsourcing company is involved in the in-house development process to help deal with some complicated tasks, fulfil the tests or even audit the work. This way of development is rather common in the companies that already have a big and experienced team, but still need assistance in one way or another.
How to Find a Reliable IT Partner?
As mobile app development popularity is growing, lots of new companies that provide such services appear on the horizon. It is rather easy to find a small startup that provides very cheap development opportunities today. Those independent teams are looking for the good offers and new investments as well. And they forget about everything else too often.
Choosing an outsourcing IT company, try to concentrate on the portfolio and clients’ reviews. Also, today there are lots of genuine l ratings on the Internet such as Clutch and TopDevelopers, which are independent in their business approach and they carefully examine all the reviews submitted.
About Us & Our Experience on the Foodtech Market
SimbirSoft is a modern IT-company, specialising in the implementation of end-to-end software & mobile development projects. Within 19 years, we have developed more than 620 IT solutions: enterprise automation systems, highly loaded systems, mobile applications, Machine Learning & Data Science solutions, embedded software.
We have developed mobile applications for several foodtech companies. Here is an example: an absolutely new food delivery app for a Russian restaurant network. The app helps the user to quickly order and pay for food, get news about the special offers of the restaurant, leave reviews and rate the services. Our specialists have established some really useful things in this app, for example: the user can make orders even without authorization and still save the order history. We have created an order routing system: the delivery address could be changed after placing the order, the system automatically selects the restaurant nearest to the customer. In addition, we have done a great work with the maps. You can calculate the cost of delivery before placing an order, see the addresses of all restaurants within the city and its region, use geolocation, or point out the delivery address manually.
In spite of the opinion that all big companies are making projects on an automatic basis, without paying attention to the its “origins”, we consider the complex development approach as our main feature. What do we mean by this? Starting to work on a new project we consider our job as not only to “implement the required task and make some code”. We concentrate on the client’s business as a whole, diving deeper into it in order to find the most useful solution that will not only solve a specific issue, but help the company to simplify its business processes, function better and earn more.
Many international companies entrusted the complete development process to us. Today we collaborate with companies such as ABBYY, Burger King, Intland Software.
Learn more about the IT product creation process from our recent article: How to Make a Version 3.0 of Almost Any IT Project and Survive
Some more information about professional development approach: 7 Must Have Features of a Really Cool and Successful IT Project
Follow us on Medium! Never miss an article!
