Social · Food
Meal Mates
A neighbourhood food-sharing app where home cooks match with hungry locals — built around real-time chat and smart geo-matching.
Industry
Social · Food Tech
Year
2025
Duration
12 weeks
Team
1 product designer, 2 senior full-stack engineers
Results
Outcomes, measured.
30k+
Meals exchanged
Across 18 launch neighbourhoods in year one.
4.8★
Community rating
From 2,400+ reviews across both sides of the marketplace.
73%
Match rate within 1hr
Listings matched and confirmed under 60 minutes.
22 min
Average pickup time
From confirmed match to handover.
The challenge
What was broken.
- Two-sided marketplace cold-start: every neighbourhood needed both home cooks and eaters to launch viably.
- Real-time matching had to feel instant — a meal listed at 6pm needed to be matched and confirmed by 7pm or the food went cold.
- Strict dietary and cultural filters mattered: vegan, halal, gluten-free, nut-free were non-negotiable for trust.
Our approach
How we solved it.
- Geo-bucketed launches: focused on dense neighbourhoods at a time, with a 'first 50 cooks' programme to seed liquidity before opening up the eater side.
- Built real-time chat and listings on Socket.IO with optimistic updates, so a tap feels instant even on flaky 4G.
- Designed dietary filters as hard constraints in the matching algorithm — never recommended, never grey-zone — and surfaced badges prominently in the UI.
- Used Google Maps for distance scoring with a hybrid taste-similarity model layered on top.
What we built
Concrete deliverables.
Next.js web app with installable PWA experience
Real-time chat & listing engine on Socket.IO
Geo-matching with distance + dietary + taste similarity scoring
Trust system: photo verification, ratings, reported issues queue
Stripe Connect for split payments and tips
Moderation dashboard for the community team
Tech stack
Next.jsNode.jsPostgreSQLSocket.IOGoogle Maps PlatformStripe ConnectRedisAWS
Services used
The capabilities behind this build.
SaaS Product Development
Zero to revenue. Multi-tenant architecture, billing, auth, dashboards, analytics — done properly.
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Mobile App Development
Native-grade iOS & Android apps with Flutter and React Native — crafted for scale, stability, and delight.
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UI / UX Design
Research-led, brand-forward product design that converts users and feels unmistakably premium.
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