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The waste‑free weekly meal planner

The meal planner that finishes the cream.

Recipes ask for 100 ml. The supermarket sells 200 ml. Mealpakt plans your whole week around the packs you actually buy, then makes sure every one of them gets used. Less waste, less money spent, and no more nightly “what shall we eat?”

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  • Free during beta
  • Your data stays in the EU

A short animation. A recipe needs 100 ml of cream, but the shop only sells 200 ml. Half goes into Monday’s pasta, the rest waits in the fridge, is forgotten and lands in the bin on Friday. Across the EU, 130 kg of food per person is wasted every year, about 26 full shopping bags. Then the week is rewound and Mealpakt plans the same packs: the cream goes into Monday’s tagliatelle and Wednesday’s risotto, every other pack finds its dishes, the potatoes carry over into next week, and nothing is thrown away.

Built and hosted in the EU

  • Hosted in the EU
  • GDPR by design
  • No cookies

01The problem

Each of us wastes nearly twice our body weight in food, every year.

Most of it does not happen in fields or factories. It happens at home, one half‑used pack at a time: the rest of the cream, the second leek, the bag of spinach we meant to cook on Thursday.

of food wasted per person in the EU every year
130kg
of food wasted per person in the EU every year
Eurostat, 2023 data
of it is thrown away in private households, more than any other stage
53%
of it is thrown away in private households, more than any other stage
Eurostat, 2023 data
worth of food lost across the EU each year
€132bn
worth of food lost across the EU each year
European Commission
spent every day just deciding what to have for dinner
16min
spent every day just deciding what to have for dinner
Talker Research, survey of US adults, 2026

The cause is surprisingly mundane: recipes are written in grams, but shops sell in packs. No meal planner we know of does the sums in between. Mealpakt does.

02How it works

Four steps to a week that adds up.

  1. 1

    Tell it how you eat

    How many people, which days, lunch or dinner. Add dislikes, hard exclusions, a calorie range per portion and the cuisines you love.

  2. 2

    Get a week that fits together

    Mealpakt chooses dishes that share ingredients, so the other half of the cream becomes Wednesday’s risotto instead of Sunday’s bin.

  3. 3

    Shop one clear list

    Grouped by supermarket aisle and counted in real packs, not grams. Share it with a link and tick things off, even without signal.

  4. 4

    Cook, tick, carry over

    What you buy fills your pantry, what you cook is deducted, and whatever keeps rolls into next week’s plan. Nothing is forgotten.

03Your kitchen, in numbers

What could Mealpakt give your household?

A rough estimate for a typical household: the money you keep and the time you get back. Adjust the settings, and see exactly how each figure is worked out below.

Compared with most homes, you throw away

Avoidable food you bin per year 60 kg worth about €243

With Mealpakt, you could keep about €211 a year and get 56 hours back
  • Half the food waste€122
  • Fewer unplanned buys€89
  • Less deciding what’s for dinner39 h
  • Fewer trips to the shop17 h

Your time counts too: at the minimum wage of €13.90 an hour, those hours are worth about €783, not included in the total above.

People who plan their meals tend to eat a more varied diet. Ducrot et al., 2017, 40,554 adults in France

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An estimate to give you a sense of scale, not a promise. Your results will vary.

How we calculate this
Half the food waste
Eurostat counts 69 kg of household food waste per person a year (2023). The Thünen Institute found that about 44 % of it is avoidable; the rest is peel, bones or coffee grounds. We value the avoidable part at about €4.03 per kg: what German households paid for the food they threw away in 2020 (GfK: €5.6 billion for 1.87 million tonnes, €2.99 per kg), raised to 2025 prices with Eurostat’s food price index (+34.6 %). Your setting scales the amount (less 0.75, more 1.5). We assume Mealpakt halves it. Eurostat 2023 · Thünen 2019 · GfK 2020 · Eurostat HICP
Fewer unplanned buys
German households spend €203 a month on food at home for one person, €372 for two and up to €638 for five or more (Destatis, 2023). In a European shopping diary study, unplanned buys made up about 22 % of the average receipt, and shopping lists are shown to reduce them. We assume Mealpakt’s list trims 2 % of your food spend, about a tenth of those unplanned buys. This is our assumption. Destatis EVS 2023 · Bell et al. 2010 · Inman et al. 2009
Less deciding what’s for dinner
No official statistic measures the time spent deciding what to eat. We assume about an hour a week today and 15 minutes with Mealpakt to review the plan: 45 minutes saved a week, 39 hours a year. This is our assumption.
Fewer trips to the shop
Shoppers in Germany visit a food shop 2.6 to 2.7 times a week (KPMG and EHI, 2025). We assume one planned weekly shop saves one of those trips, at 20 minutes including the way there: 17 hours a year. This is our assumption. KPMG and EHI 2025
Your time in euros
Shown for reference only and never added to the total. We use the statutory minimum wage of €13.90 an hour (2026), close to the rate Destatis uses to value unpaid housework. German Labour Ministry 2025 · Destatis 2016

04The difference

Other planners start with a recipe. Mealpakt starts at the shelf.

A recipe asks for 150 g of mushrooms, so a recipe app puts 150 g on your list. The shop only sells 250 g. Mealpakt knows the packs on German supermarket shelves and plans from them: it picks the week’s dishes because they share what you open, then adjusts each recipe so every pack has somewhere to go.

  • Cream, herbs, mushrooms: whatever spoils once opened is finished in full. A recipe’s 425 g of tomatoes becomes the whole 500 g pack.
  • Butter, carrots, eggs: whatever keeps is rounded to a clean half or third, and the rest waits for next week’s plan.
  • The shopping list counts packs, not grams, so you buy what the week needs and nothing more.
One week, three packsMonday’s tagliatelle opens the cream and the mushrooms. So Mealpakt picks Wednesday’s risotto to finish both.

Planned by recipe

Cream 200 ml Mon100 ml
Mushrooms 250 g Mon100 g
Potatoes 2 kg Tue1.2 kg

1.4 kg in the bin

Planned by pack

Cream 200 ml MonWed
Mushrooms 250 g MonWed
Potatoes 2 kg TueNext week

Nothing in the bin

  • Cooked
  • Carried over
  • Binned

05Full control, with AI

Plan every detail. Or none at all.

At the heart of Mealpakt is an AI planner that knows your packs, your pantry and your taste, and turns them into a week that works. How much you steer is up to you: set every detail yourself, hand over the whole week in one tap, or anything in between.

Every detail One tap Or anything in between

Hands on

You decide everything

  • Mon to Fri, 2 people Dinner
  • Calories per portion 850 to 1,050
  • Mushroom tagliatelle Pinned to Mon
  • Thursday Thai
  • Coriander Parsley
  • Spinach Use up first

“Something lighter on Friday”

Friday updated

Hands off

Mealpakt decides everything

Plan 5 meals

  1. MonCreamy mushroom tagliatelle
  2. TueLeek and potato gratin
  3. WedMushroom and spinach risotto
  4. ThuThai green curry
  5. FriPotato and feta frittata

Planned around your packs and pantry. You just cook.

  • Say it in plain words

    Write “something lighter on Friday” or “make Tuesday vegetarian”, and the plan changes to match. No menus to dig through.

  • The hard part, done for you

    Packs, pantry, portions and taste are weighed together, so every suggestion already fits your week and your shopping list.

  • Nothing is final until you say so

    Reroll a day, keep the dishes you love, and lock the week only when it looks right. Your pins, dislikes and exclusions always hold.

06Plant‑based classics

Your favourite classics. Made plant‑based.

Vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian: you do not have to give up Bolognese, currywurst or Frikadellen. Mealpakt keeps the classics on your plan and cooks them with plant‑based alternatives from the supermarket shelf, vegan mince for beef, smoked tofu for bacon, plant‑based cream for cream. The dish stays the same. Only the pack changes.

  • Choose vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian as your way of eating, or just for one plan, and everything that does not fit stays out.
  • Switch on Plant‑based classics, and familiar dishes come back, made with alternatives.
  • The shopping list, the pack sizes and the zero‑waste maths already count the alternatives.

100 kg of greenhouse gases per kilogram of beef from beef herds, against about 3 kg for tofu Our World in Data, after Poore and Nemecek

Spaghetti Bolognese vegan
  • Beef mince Vegan mince
  • Parmesan Vegan grated cheese
  • Passata, spaghetti, onions as in the recipe

Cooking tip in the recipeBrown the vegan mince in a little oil for 5 to 6 minutes; it releases no fat to drain.

07Features

Everything a busy kitchen actually needs.

Built around one idea: the food you buy should be the food you eat. And your pantry keeps itself up to date: tick things off as you shop, tap “cooked” after dinner, and confirm what is left at the end of the week.

  1. Pantry

    • Potatoes 1.2 kg
    • Basmati rice 350 g
    • Onions 3

    Planned: Monday’s potato soup

    Leftovers roll forward

    The rest of the two kilo potato sack isn’t waste, it’s next Monday. Anything that keeps shapes the following week’s plan.

  2. Use it up

    • Spinach 2 days
    • Greek yoghurt 3 days
    • Feta 6 days

    Cooked first: Wednesday’s risotto

    “Use it up” nudges

    Anything in your pantry that expires within three days is flagged, and planned first.

  3. Tonight

    • Leek and potato gratin × 2
    • Portion for tomorrow Lunch

    One pan, two meals, nothing left

    Cook once, eat twice

    Double tonight’s portion and tomorrow’s lunch is already sorted. Planned, counted and on the list.

  4. Thai green curry

    • Coriander Parsley
    • Peanuts Never
    • Coconut milk 400 ml All of it

    Your taste, the same dish

    Dislikes swapped, not dropped

    Can’t stand coriander? It is replaced inside the dish. Allergies and hard no’s never appear at all, not even as a substitute.

  5. Waste score

    96
    Last four weeks
    72818896

    Most binned lately: fresh herbs

    Your weekly waste score

    Every week closes with a score, what carried over, and the ingredients you bin most often. Watch it improve.

  • Dishes you’ll recognise

    Proper recipes you know and trust, not experiments. Dinner turns out the way it should, and every plate still helps finish what’s open.

  • Recipes from a photo

    Snap your grandmother’s handwritten card or your own recipe notes, and they become recipes Mealpakt can plan with.

  • A list that works in the shop

    Grouped by aisle, counted in packs, in German and English. Share it by link with anyone; ticks sync when the signal returns.

  • It learns your taste

    Rate what you cook. Favourites return, and a one‑star dish is never planned again.

  • Twenty‑four cuisines

    Rotate through the world’s kitchens or pin Thai to Thursdays. Add quick, air fryer or high protein weeks.

  • A pantry that keeps itself

    Tick an item off in the shop and it lands in your pantry. Mark a dish as cooked and its share comes off. No stocktaking, ever.

08Why not just…

Other apps plan meals. Mealpakt plans the shopping basket.

Popular planners are good at recipes and lists. What people tell us they miss is everything in between: the half‑used packs, the leftovers, the subscription that grows every year, and the uneasy question of where their data ends up.

See the full comparison
Typical planner Mealpakt
Recipes in grams, shopping in guesswork Every dish planned around real pack sizes
Leftovers are your problem Leftovers become next week’s ingredients
Features disappear behind paywalls Free during beta, then an affordable base plan
Data on servers outside the EU Hosted in the EU, with EU providers

09Our mission

A world where nobody throws away half a bag of spinach again.

Food waste is not a moral failing. It is a planning problem, and planning problems can be solved with good software. We want to put that software in every kitchen.

  • ½

    Halve the food waste of every household that plans with Mealpakt.

  • 30 %

    Help the EU reach its binding 2030 target: a 30 % cut in food waste per person in shops, restaurants and homes.

    Read the source

  • 4 days

    Give back the time people spend each year deciding what to have for dinner.

    Read the source

  • 100 %

    Prove that everyday software can be designed, built, hosted and funded in the EU.

These are goals, not measured results. We will publish our real numbers as soon as the beta produces them.

10Pricing

Free while we grow. Fair when we’re grown.

We would rather be honest than clever about money.

From launch

Beta

Free

  • Every feature, no limits
  • iPhone and web app
  • Shopping list sharing
  • Founding members hear about any plan first
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When we leave beta

Later

Affordable

  • A base plan that always stays affordable
  • Optional extras for heavy AI use
  • Priced for households, not for growth charts
  • Cancel in one tap, export your data

Our promise: no selling of data, ever. And a base plan every household can afford.

11Questions

Good questions.

Is Mealpakt free?

During the beta, yes: every feature is free, with no limits and no ads. After the beta there will be a base plan that always stays affordable, priced for households rather than for growth charts, plus optional extras for heavy AI use. Beta members will hear about prices well in advance.

Which devices does it run on?

On iPhone, and in any modern browser on Android, Windows, Mac or Linux. A native Android app is on our roadmap.

Does it only work for German supermarkets?

No. The default pack sizes follow German supermarkets, and you can easily change any of them to match the packs sold where you live. The shopping list comes in German and English. Ready‑made defaults for more countries are on the way.

Is the app available in German?

The app interface is in English today, while the shopping list comes in German and English. A full German interface is on the roadmap.

Can my partner or flatmates use it too?

Share the shopping list with a link that opens in any browser, no account needed. Full shared households with several accounts are coming.

Do I have to count calories?

No. Setting a calorie range per portion is optional. If you do, Mealpakt scales every dish to fit, so you never have to count anything yourself.

Does it work for vegetarians, vegans or allergies?

Yes. Choose vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian once, and the planner leaves out everything that does not fit. With Plant‑based classics switched on, familiar dishes such as Bolognese or Frikadellen stay on your plan, made with plant‑based alternatives like vegan mince or smoked tofu, and the shopping list follows. Exclude any other ingredient, for an allergy or simply by taste, and it never appears. Dislikes are handled more gently: they are swapped for something similar inside the dish. And a single plan can have a diet of its own, a vegetarian week or everything when guests come, while the next plan starts from your usual way of eating again.

What happens to my data?

It is stored in the EU with EU providers and used only to plan your meals. We never show ads and never sell or share your data for marketing. Ask, and we delete everything.

Is Mealpakt a good alternative to Mealime?

Mealime announced that it would close on 21 October 2026. If you liked its calm weekly routine, Mealpakt keeps the simple week and the single shopping list, and adds what Mealime left out: every pack used up and leftovers carried into the next plan. Our page on Mealime alternatives compares the options honestly, ours included.

Sources

Every figure on this page links to its source. Checked September 2026.

  1. Eurostat: 130 kg of food wasted per person annually in the EU, 16 October 2025
  2. European Commission: Food waste
  3. Talker Research: Seafood ranks among Americans’ most satisfying end‑of‑week meals (survey of 2,000 US adults), 25 June 2026
  4. Official Journal of the European Union: Directive (EU) 2025/1892 amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, 10 September 2025
  5. European Commission: Food waste reduction targets
  6. European Parliament: Parliament adopts new EU rules to reduce textile and food waste, 9 September 2025
  7. Thünen-Institut: Lebensmittelabfälle in Deutschland: Baseline 2015 (Thünen Report 71), p. 60, 2019
  8. GfK for the Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft: Systematische Erfassung von Lebensmittelabfällen der privaten Haushalte in Deutschland, Schlussbericht 2020, pp. 18 and 64, 30 September 2021
  9. Eurostat: HICP annual average indices, food (prc_hicp_aind, CP011)
  10. Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis): Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichprobe 2023: Ausgaben für Nahrungsmittel nach Haushaltsgröße, 16 June 2026
  11. Marketing Science Institute: Bell, Corsten and Knox: Unplanned buying on shopping trips (Working Paper 10-109), p. 22, 2010
  12. Journal of Marketing: Inman, Winer and Ferraro: The interplay among category characteristics, customer characteristics, and customer activities on in-store decision making, 2009
  13. KPMG and EHI: Consumer Barometer: Schnitzel oder Blumenkohl, Supermarkt oder Bioladen?, June 2025
  14. Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales: Anhebung des gesetzlichen Mindestlohns zum 1. Januar 2026
  15. Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis): Schwarz and Schwahn: Entwicklung der unbezahlten Arbeit privater Haushalte (WISTA 2/2016), p. 41, 2016
  16. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity: Ducrot et al.: Meal planning is associated with food variety, diet quality and body weight status in a large sample of French adults, 2017
  17. Our World in Data, based on Poore and Nemecek (2018), Science: Greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product

12Made in the EU

Your kitchen stays in the EU.

What you eat says a great deal about you: your health, your religion, your budget, your family. That is why every byte of Mealpakt is stored in the European Union, with EU companies, under EU law.

  • Hosted in the EU

    All data lives in EU data centres run by EU providers. No transfers to third countries, no small print about “adequate safeguards”.

  • Your data is not for sale

    We earn money from people who use Mealpakt, never from retailers or data brokers. You are the customer, not the product.

  • No trackers on this site or in the app

    No analytics scripts, no pixels, no fingerprinting in the app or on this website. Even this website sets no cookies, which is why you have not seen a cookie banner. Only our newsletter counts opens and clicks, and only if you sign up for it.

  • GDPR by design

    We collect only what planning needs: an email address, your preferences and your plans. Ask, and all of it is deleted.

You decide what happens to your data.

See what we store, correct it or delete all of it. One message is enough, and a person answers it.

How we handle privacy

€Every euro we spend on infrastructure stays with businesses in the EU.

This week, waste nothing.

Be among the first households to plan with Mealpakt. Leave your email address, and we will tell you the moment the beta opens. Free during beta, no card required.

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