Once we had our idea solidified, we needed to understand how it might fit into the existing market. To do this, we conducted 4 total interviews (1 each) with users of various established meal kit services, where we discovered 4 major pain points experienced by each of our participants, who ranged from college students to working professionals with families:

• Users are too busy to prepare meals and grocery shop.

• Limited variety in cuisines and lack of customization options for dietary preferences. There is also a lack of intuitive filtering options.

• Meals sometimes have inappropriate portion sizes (too large or too small). Some users also had concerns about the freshness of ingredients by the end of the week.

• Lack of engaging content or features that keep users motivated to continue using the service.

With these pain points in mind, we crafted our problem statement:

Students and working professionals struggle with grocery shopping, coming up with interesting meals to make, and setting aside enough time to prep and cook meals in their busy schedules. They need a way for them to make engaging, varied meals, without all the hassle. Existing meal kit apps like Hello Fresh and Factor are convenient, but often lack variety and intrigue. This makes users feel limited by repetitive meals and minimal diversity. We aim to create a meal kit app that introduces users to authentic dishes from various cuisines, with more flexibility, customization, and introduction into those foods.