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CASE STUDY

Food Production and Meal-Program Platform, Recipe to Doorstep

A US food producer runs its meal programs on one system we designed and built: a web back office and customer portal, a kitchen tablet app and a driver app on one backend. Orders are checked against each participant's program budget, turned into a kitchen production plan in one click, labeled automatically and delivered with photo proof.

CLIENT
A US food producer and meal-program provider
INDUSTRY
Food production and meal programs
ENGAGEMENT
Designed and built by AppsXone, in production since 2026 and in active development with monthly releases
STACK
ASP.NET Core 8 MVC, C#, SQL Server, EF Core, React Native, Google Maps Platform, USDA FoodData Central
THE PROBLEM

Meal programs run on rules, and the work crossed the office, the kitchen and the delivery fleet.

  • Program rules: every order had to respect the participant's coverage period, points, per-meal or weekly budget and delivery schedule, and those budgets were checked by hand
  • Dietary safety: allergens, health precautions and kosher classifications had to be known per item and per household member
  • Kitchen coordination: production plans were built by adding up individual orders, department by department
  • Calendar constraints: holidays such as Passover and blocked delivery hours changed what could be ordered and delivered, and when
  • Labels: box labels were prepared by hand
  • Last-mile delivery: routes were planned on paper or in separate tools, and delivery disputes were settled from memory
HOW IT WORKS

One backend, from order to doorstep

ORDER Built against the budget
WORK ORDER Grouped by date and warehouse
PRODUCE Sent to production by department
LABEL Box labels printed
ROUTE Routed and tracked
POD Proof of delivery

The system has four parts on one backend and one SQL Server database: a web back office and customer portal in ASP.NET Core 8 MVC, a kitchen production app on tablets and a driver app, both in React Native, and a packing-floor print station built as a .NET 8 utility.

An order is built against the participant's budget and program rules. Staff group eligible orders into a Work Order, and Send to Production turns them into one production order split by kitchen department. Prepared, QA and packaged counts are tracked per department, labels print at the packing station, routes are planned by territory, date and delivery window, and the driver's photos become the proof of delivery.

WHAT WE BUILT

One system, built around how the work actually happens.

01Recipes, bills of materials and units
02USDA nutrition and dietary data
03Orders checked against the program as they are built
04Rule-based pricing by item and customer
CATALOG

Recipes, bills of materials and units

Items and recipes with bills of materials, yield and portion, shelf life, packaging, and carton and pallet dimensions. Units convert in several steps across vendor, production and customer units.

NUTRITION

USDA nutrition and dietary data

Staff search USDA FoodData Central, import nutrient values by gram weight and preview the nutrition panel. Allergens and health precautions are held per item and per household member, with kosher classifications (meat, dairy, pareve), meal periods, and course and cuisine types.

MEAL BUILDER

Orders checked against the program as they are built

Staff, or customers through the portal, build orders cart-style for ready-to-eat meals or grocery items, per individual or whole family. Each order is checked live against coverage period, points, per-meal or weekly budget, delivery schedule, holidays and blocked delivery hours. Weekly plans carry items over, templates are reusable, and confirmations and weekly meal plans print as PDFs.

PRICING

Rule-based pricing by item and customer

Fixed, increase or decrease, percentage, override and exclusive rules. Conflicts are detected before a rule is saved, and each customer has a view of the price that actually applies.

WORK ORDERS

One-click production plans by department

Staff group eligible orders for a date and warehouse. Send to Production runs as one database transaction, combines every order into one bulk production order and splits the lines by kitchen department, such as hot kitchen and cold production. It includes recipe breakdown, inventory forecasting and drill-down from each quantity to the orders behind it, with prepared, QA and packaged counts per department as status moves from Scheduled to Completed.

KITCHEN APP

A tablet app for the kitchen

A React Native production app on kitchen tablets, on the same backend and database as the back office, so the kitchen works from the production order the office created. More on this kind of work in mobile application development.

LABELS

Barcoded box labels, printed without downloads

Box labels are generated on the brand's own label template, with logo, ship-to address and a Code128 barcode encoding order, box number and case count. A .NET print station on the packing floor collects new labels from the server and drops them into a local print folder, so nobody downloads labels by hand.

ROUTING

Territories, routes and live tracking

Dispatchers draw delivery territories as polygons on Google Maps, with zip codes and delivery days. The route planner groups orders by territory, date and delivery window and assigns drivers and vehicles. Drivers use a React Native driver app, vehicles are tracked live on a map, and a background job geocodes customer and order addresses.

PROOF OF DELIVERY

Photo proof for every drop

Driver photos are compressed into Proof of Delivery PDFs, per order or merged for a batch.

DASHBOARD

One live view, with role-based security

The dashboard shows the order pipeline, order and revenue trends, top customers, kitchen progress per department, delivery progress per driver, program-type mix and recipes missing critical data. Tasks link to orders, items or vendors with notes, attachments and recurring email reminders. Nine operational roles, per-screen view, add, edit and delete permissions, optional email one-time-password sign-in and a login audit trail control access, and every list screen remembers each user's chosen columns.

TECHNOLOGIES

What it runs on.

ASP.NET Core 8 MVCC#SQL ServerEF CoreReact NativeGoogle Maps PlatformUSDA FoodData Central
OUTCOME

What changed.

  • Program budgets that were checked by hand are now enforced while the order is built
  • Kitchen plans that were built by adding up orders are now a one-click, department-level production plan
  • Box labels that were prepared by hand are now generated and sent to the printer
  • Route planning on paper or in separate tools became territory-based planning with live vehicle tracking
  • Delivery disputes that were settled from memory now have photo proof for every drop
  • Little cross-team visibility became one live dashboard from intake to delivery

This page shows no percentages or figures because none have been confirmed by the client for publication. Where a number is not verified, it is left out rather than estimated.

ONGOING VALUE

After go-live.

The platform has been in production since 2026 and is in active development, with monthly releases driven by feedback from operations. For example, the packing-floor print station received a memory fix and auto-exit logic after running on the packing floor.

RELATED INDUSTRIES

Where this work applies.

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