- Automatically creates menus for up to a week in an instant and provides advice on cooking methods for children.
- I look forward to eating!" My food costs are lower!" and "Food costs less!
- The plan is to link up with "food delivery services," making it even more convenient!
The "me:new" app introduced here is an application that automatically creates daily menus using AI. It automatically creates menus for up to a week in an instant and provides advice on age-appropriate cooking methods for children. The app, which offers nutritionally balanced menus supervised by a registered dietitian and is allergy and baby food compliant, won the grand prize in the "BabyTech® Award Japan 2020 Breastfeeding and Meals" category. The BabyTech.jp editors interviewed Mr. Nobuyuki Miyake, President of me:new, the developer of me:new, to learn more about the app, its development process, and future plans.
Thinking about the daily menu" is causing considerable stress.
Editorial:Thank you very much for your time today. Can you give us a brief overview of "me:new" and its features?
Miyake:me:new" is a cooking service application that automatically creates menus with the user's age, preferences, and nutritional balance in mind. The service has four features in total. The first is the ability to automatically create menus for up to one week. Basically, all you have to do is specify a "time period" and a menu will be automatically suggested. The second feature is the automatic creation of a "shopping list" of ingredients needed for the menu. The items on the shopping list are organized by supermarket section, so there is no need to go back and forth in the store and forget to buy what you need. The third feature is that the suggested menus are all "shortcuts" (dishes that can be completed in a short period of time) carefully selected by a nutritionist, so you can save time when cooking. The fourth feature is that the menus are prepared in consideration of nutritional conditions, thus ensuring the long-term health of your family.
Editorial:I love it when you come up with a menu for the week and make suggestions! I am often asked, "What do you want for dinner tonight?" I am often asked, "What do you want for dinner tonight?" But I don't have that many ideas, and I can't really think about nutritional balance.
Sample menus proposed by "me:new
Example of a shopping list created by me:new
Miyake:The average family spends roughly 140 minutes a week "just for menu planning".
Editorial:That's nearly two and a half hours every week! Using "me:new" saves you a considerable amount of time and reduces your stress.
Miyake:In addition, "me:new" can propose menus that take into account households raising small children. The first is a function that suggests menu items that both small children and adults can eat together, eliminating the need to prepare separate meals. The second feature is a menu suggestion for allergies, the third is advice on serving food according to the age of the child, and the fourth is advice on baby food according to the age of the child.
Editorial:What do you mean by "advice on portioning" and "advice on weaning?"
Miyake:The "Advice for portioning" is advice that is displayed for each age group and food item, based on the child's birth date registered in advance. For example, a 3-year-old child may be advised to "prepare this food in this way," while a 2-year-old child may be advised "do not give this food yet. For example, a menu for a 1-2 year old child might say, "Grated ginger is used to remove the smell of meat, but please do not give it to the child. This labeling changes again for menus for children aged 3 to 5 years old. All of these are prepared under the supervision of the Maternal and Child Nutrition Association.
The "Weaning Food Advice" function allows you to register your child's date of birth and automatically displays advice on weaning food according to the child's age in months. Weaning food is divided into four stages: early, middle, late, and complete, and information is provided on the appropriate consistency of weaning food for each stage, portion sizes, sample menus, and how to select food items.
Example of "me:new" baby food advice
Editorial:I understand that "me:new" is available for free, but there is also a paid version called "me:new Prime" course.
Miyake:The "me:new Prime" service, which costs 400 yen per month, offers a "90% Food for Successful Kids" course. This service offers menu suggestions based on the best-selling book, "Successful Kids are 90% Food (Shufunotomo)," which has sold 100,000 copies. In addition, users can check the detailed nutrients included in the menu and receive dietary advice.
Utilizing his own child-rearing experience and his family's cooking experience in the development of the app
Editorial:What led you to develop "me:new"?
Miyake:At the time I conceived the idea for me:new, I was working with my husband and wife, and our two children were in daycare, so I was very busy. And since we couldn't go shopping during the week, we would buy in bulk on the weekends. I would look at recipe websites and recipe books in advance, plan my menu, and write my shopping list on a piece of paper at ......, but I had a lot of other things to do on the weekends, which made it very difficult.
I thought it would be very convenient, especially for families with small children, if there was a service that could automatically prepare menus for them. I thought there must be such a service, but when I looked into it, I found none, so I decided to create one myself, which is how I came up with the idea.
Editorial:Have you always worked in application development?
Miyake:After graduating and working as a system engineer for three years, I changed jobs to an advertising agency. I developed "me:new" when I was working at the ad agency for 7 to 8 years. When "me:new" was launched in 2012, it was a website service for smartphones, not an app. The app was completed around 2014.
Editorial:What were some of the challenges in the development of "me:new"?
Miyake:First, in order to understand how people who cook at home feel, I cooked for my own family every day from about two years before the service was launched until after its release. Then, I posted the contents on my blog to communicate with people who cook at home. Until then, I was ashamed to admit that I left cooking completely up to my wife.
Editorial:That is an interesting start!
Miyake:Thanks to the blog, I have learned what kind of problems people are having and what kind of home cooking they seem to be looking for from the reactions when I upload dishes.
Editorial:This is exactly the kind of content that will lead to the development of "me:new". By the way, how are you developing the "me:new" menu?
Miyake:We collected about 2,000 recipes when we started up. At that time, we asked people we met through our blog and received about 100-200 recipes per person. A few years later, a cooking school called "Better Home" provided us with recipes, and in March 2020, we started developing our own recipes as well. The recipes developed in-house are called "Oyako Kodomo Recipes," which are easy to make even for busy people and can be eaten together by parents and children.
Editorial:How many menus do you currently have?
Miyake:It will be about 4,000.
A variety of delicious recipes from me:new
"I look forward to meals!" Food costs are lower!" and "Food is cheaper!
Editorial:Can you tell us about the current number of downloads of "me:new" and what users with preschool children think of it?
Miyake:The number of downloads is approximately 1.3 million. Users have commented, "I am happy to have recipes that I can eat together with my small child," "My food costs are lower and I spend less time shopping, so it's a lot easier," and "I can get out of my rut and my children look forward to asking, 'What's for dinner today? I have received comments such as, "I am glad to have recipes that my children can eat together with me because they are small.
Editorial:It is quite difficult to come up with a daily menu if it is something that small children can eat and has a good nutritional balance ......, so I understand the feedback from the users.
Miyake:When children are young, they grow up day by day, so when I was cooking, I also felt that their bodies were made of what I was feeding them. If their growth is delayed, it may be because of my cooking. ...... I think it is really hard for parents of small children to make menus.
Editorial:By the way, what is the reason for your impression that food costs are lower?
Miyake:There are probably two reasons. The first is the "use-and-forget" function of me:new. This function suggests menus so that you do not have to cook from scratch every day. Second, "me:new" creates a shopping list based on the menu, so many people buy in bulk according to the list. In other words, since they know what they are going to buy and go shopping less often, they are naturally less likely to waste money on unnecessary purchases.
The strongest combination of "automatic menu planning app" and "food delivery" is born?
Editorial:Finally, can you tell us about the future development of "me:new"?
Miyake:Currently, we are working with food delivery companies. In other words, a system whereby users can easily order necessary foodstuffs and have them delivered when they make a menu plan on "me:new".
Editorial:Is it the linkage between "automatic menu planning" and "food delivery"? ...... That is the best combination for families raising children!
After the interview
When you are working together and have small children, it is really hard to make daily menus and shop. As I have experienced, it is difficult to answer the question, "What do you want for dinner today? I am especially concerned about the nutritional balance of the children's menus and baby food. I felt that "me:new" is an app that supports such a situation and is truly "what I've been waiting for! I felt that "me:new" is the app that child-rearing families have been waiting for.
me:new" Official Website
https://menew.jp/sp/index.html
