Favour, a health tech startup from New Zealand, is gaining rapid popularity in Australasia after launching a new AI feature. This free app, which already has over 35,000 users, now lets home cooks transform a photo of any recipe into an instant, ready to buy grocery order at Woolworths stores.

As New Zealanders navigate a large grocery market and higher living costs, Favour presents a do it yourself alternative to meal kit services. The company states its solution can be up to 50% cheaper than traditional subscription boxes like HelloFresh.

How the Favour App Works
The app uses advanced text recognition and custom artificial intelligence to scan ingredient lists from any source, such as a cookbook page or a social media post. After a recipe is captured, the app performs several key steps. It matches each ingredient with real time pricing and availability at Woolworths New Zealand. It then lets users easily remove items they already have in their pantry, like salt or flour, addressing a common source of waste from standard meal kits. Finally, with a single tap, the complete ingredient list is added to the user’s online Woolworths shopping cart for pickup or delivery.

“We did not want to create just another meal kit company; we wanted to fix the problems with the existing ones,” said Nick Gilbert, Founder of Favour. “People like the convenience but are frustrated by strict delivery schedules, too much plastic packaging, and high costs. Favour gives you the curated cooking experience using your favorite recipes, but at regular supermarket prices.”

Benefits for Users and Brands
In addition to helping families save money, Favour has a business model that keeps the app free for consumers. The company partners with well known food brands, such as Whittaker’s, using combined and anonymous user data to provide these companies with insights into current cooking trends. This replaces traditional advertising with valuable market research.

The app’s surge in popularity is well timed. With the 2025 holiday season straining household budgets, Favour has recorded its highest number of downloads this December as people look for smarter ways to manage cooking and groceries for the new year.

About Favour
Developed by FoodMe Ltd and based in Auckland, Favour is designed as a “Digital Sous Chef“ to make meal planning easier. First prototyped by developer Dave Hancock and later scaled by entrepreneur Nick Gilbert, the app’s mission is to make quality home cooking more accessible by removing the time and effort usually spent on grocery list planning.

Media Contact: Nick Gilbert, Founder
Email: support@diymealkit.co.nz
App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.foodme.app