LaunchParty

SmartCartAI+ Case Study

From Grocery List to AI-Powered Meal Planning

A Launch Party-built iOS MVP that turns your dietary goals into dynamic, personalized grocery plans in under 60 seconds.

SmartCartAI+ App Features - AI-Personalized Meal Planning, Smart Grocery Lists, Easy-to-Follow Recipes, and Grocery Price Tracking

Project Overview

SmartCartAI+ is an AI-driven iOS app that creates personalized meal plans and grocery lists based on user preferences, goals, and dietary restrictions.

The app intelligently adjusts based on feedback and learns user behavior over time.

Client

Internal (Launch Party MVP demo)

Timeline

4 weeks

Platform

iOS

Tech Stack

SwiftUI, OpenAI API, Firebase

Team

1 Product Manager, 1 Developer, 1 Designer

SmartCartAI+ Tech Stack - Frontend (Swift), Backend (Firebase), and API

The Problem

Most grocery and meal planning apps are static, time-consuming, and lack personalization.

Users are forced to manually plan meals and track ingredients across multiple apps.

Our goal was to create a mobile-first solution that automates planning and reduces decision fatigue and food waste.

Design & UX

We created wireframes in Figma focused on delivering an intuitive, no-clutter user experience.

Users could go from inputting goals to generating a dynamic grocery list in under 60 seconds.

SmartCartAI+ User Flow - Daily Nutrition Goals with calorie targets and shopping parameters, Profile setup with user metrics and activity level, leading to AI meal plan generation

Prompt Engineering & AI Fine-Tuning

This was the core innovation in SmartCartAI+.

We built a multi-step prompt system using OpenAI that:

  • Translated user goals into structured daily plans
  • Generated full meal menus with ingredients and macros
  • Output a categorized grocery list

We fine-tuned for:

  • Output reliability and accuracy
  • Handling edge cases (e.g., keto, low-FODMAP)
  • Reducing hallucinated steps/ingredients
  • Enabling one-click ingredient swaps

By version 2, we improved prompt success rates by over 70%

SmartCartAI+ Prompt Engineering - Meal prep mode requirements and strict requirements code documentation

Build & Deploy

The app was built entirely with SwiftUI.

Firebase powered real-time data sync, pantry management, and user sessions.

Features included:

  • AI-generated meal plans
  • Grocery list generation
  • Ingredient swapping
  • Pantry tracking
  • Calorie/macro analysis

What We Learned

Prompt design is product design

Simplicity > novelty in user-facing AI tools

Micro changes in prompts had macro impacts on user trust and satisfaction

Next Steps

Feature roadmap includes:

  • Recipe imports
  • Shared meal plans
  • Grocery delivery integrations

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