Gaston

An advanced FoodTech platform for restaurants and customers connecting special diet needs to food choices around you

DevOps services
Mobile Development
QA
UI/UX design
Web Development

Project description

We developed this powerful platform for food lovers who follow their diet and restaurant owners who want to delight their clients’ dining experience. Its core functionality is the opportunity to create a personalized menu based on special diets, food preferences, ingredients intolerance, a person’s allergy, or cuisine categories. The application enables customers to order food or reserve a table with nearby restaurant participants in the project. The app allows restaurateurs to manage restaurant info, bookings, dishes availability, various types of orders, and payment methods in one place. It is also designed to help identify users’ unique dietary demands when they order food. The system remembers the choice, and it is easier to serve them in the future.

Industry:	FoodTech
Platforms:	Mobile, Web
Role:	Software developer, IT consultant
Tech Stack:	React.js, React Native, PHP Laravel, MySQL

Problem introduction

Our client came to us with the idea of a product that could meet the requirements of demanding customers with certain food limitations or priorities and restaurant owners striving to understand these special dietary needs of their customers and manage their business efficiently in one place. It had to comprise iOS and Android apps for customers and a web dashboard, and a mobile app for restaurants. The admin panel had to be intuitive and functional, simplifying supporting, resolving, and managing various issues for the platform owner and tech administrators.

Main goals

Build an MVP in the shortest time
Re-develop the Customer’s iOS and Android mobile apps from scratch
Update a mobile application for restaurateurs
Integrate payment and messaging systems
Implement an advanced CI/CD solution
Make the solution customizable
Provide convenient UI/UX designs
Improve the admin panel

Tech Challenges

The project’s major challenges were to cope with the legacy codebase and to create an MVP of a multifunctional SaaS platform within tight deadlines and with a limited budget. As the app’s functionality was rich and included a sign-up system, a personalized menu, ordering, booking, and payment systems, the POS system, the admin panel, etc., we had to conduct a thorough business and product analysis and the evaluation of possible risks. Based on the data retrieved, we suggested the most optimal project approach, which led to the successful accomplishment of the task. Implementing the POS system into the restaurant’s mobile application was also a bit challenging because it had to allow users to print bills from specialized devices. In our case, the platform recommended specific Xiaomi devices running on Android. Besides, the team should provide a customer’s app with an AI model connecting a user’s personalized food plan with matching food choices around a person.

Core Functionality:

In-app payments
3rd party messaging system integration
POS system
Profile customization
Possibility to add a guest profile for a single use
Menu personalization
Option to book reservations in restaurants-partners of a platform
Admin panel with access to all the available services and functionalities

Solution

Our team developed an elaborate food ordering and delivery platform addressing the most demanding customers with strict food diets, food allergies, and intolerance. Mobile applications for food lovers offer a rich ecosystem where they can put on the list all unwanted ingredients, view foods based on this choice for themselves and their guests, and order food. The setting-up of a dietary profile is easy and takes a few minutes. The smart AI model processes the information and gives personalized meal recommendations, which a person can find in the nearest area. The app supports online ordering, paying, and in-restaurant pick-ups.

Mobile application and the Admin panel for restaurant owners enable them to manage various orders, restaurant bookings, and the inner business processes in one place. Our team created a dashboard where participants can work with general restaurant info, its opening hours, menus, dishes available for clients, ingredients, payment methods, takeaways, orders, importing menus from a file, etc. The additional feature to the added above of a mobile restaurant application is the POS system printing bills from certain devices.