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03-31-2025

Problems to be solved – Meal Planning

This is the first post in a series where I’ll explore topics that many people assume are already solved—but in reality, they’re still wide open for innovation.

Meal planning is a great example. On the surface, it seems like a straightforward problem: decide what to eat, shop for ingredients, and cook. But in practice, it’s a massive challenge for many people. There are countless goals, constraints, and approaches involved, which makes it a surprisingly unsolved space. In fact, if someone could truly crack it, they’d be sitting on a gold mine. Despite dozens of apps and systems out there, there’s still no “killer” solution.

One of the reasons meal planning is so hard to solve is because the problem space is too broad for any one-size-fits-all approach. People have different goals—some want to eat healthier, others want to save money, or save time, or all of the above. And they all live within different sets of constraints.

Let’s start by outlining some of the real-world issues people run into when trying to meal plan:

Pain Points

This idea could be expanded upon. What if this problem was solved, what benefits will we reap? What apps are currently trying to tackle this problem? What are their shortcomings? How do meal planning services play into this arena? What are some standard approaches people use to plan meals? How does technology help and hinder? What are some ideas to solve this?

©Larry Buffaloboy