New features in Samsung’s ai-powered food and recipe app could make meal planning and food management tasks much easier. Samsung FoodYou can now add items to a grocery list just by taking a photo. The app can suggest recipes based on the foods you have, automatically remove them when you cook a recipe with something on the list, and then add foods back to the list when you check them off your shopping list.
Previously, the grocery list was only accessible through the SmartThings app and the tablet built into Samsung’s Family Hub smart refrigerators, limiting its usefulness. Now, as part of the cross-platform Samsung Food app, it could turn the service into a truly useful all-in-one app for shopping, managing groceries, meal planning and cooking.
But it will cost you money. These new features are part of Samsung Food Plusa paid level of Free food management appThe service costs $6.99 per month ($59.99 per year) and in addition to the grocery list feature, it removes ads from the app, offers a personalized seven-day meal plan, lets users customize recipes using ai, and tracks nutritional goals. The app works on both iOS and Android and on The networkrequires a Samsung account.
Last year I tried Samsung Food, and while I liked how easy it was to import recipes from anywhere and how it made me a personalized meal plan for each week, I found adding items to the grocery list and the fact that the meal plan didn't suggest recipes based on the list frustrating. With this update, both of those complaints have been addressed.
Samsung says the service now creates meal plans based on your grocery list and prioritizes items “close to their expiration date” (this has to be set manually). Plus, a new “Search with your grocery list” feature lets you easily find a recipe based on what you have. All of this should make meal planning and shopping a lot easier, as long as you’re willing to do it all in Samsung’s app.
The headline feature of the new updates is Vision ai, which leverages your phone's camera to identify items you need to add to your grocery list. Just snap a photo of whatever you have in your pantry or fridge and the ingredients will be added to the list.
Vision ai is also in the The Ultimate Family Hub Refrigeratorwhere its ai-powered built-in cameras can automatically add certain foods to your grocery list. However, Samsung says the app version can identify more than 40,000 types of ingredients using your smartphone’s camera, compared to just 33 that the fridge can detect. That’s because the fridge processes the images locally, while the app can take advantage of cloud processing.
Samsung Food also features ai-guided cooking steps that integrate with compatible Samsung ovens to preheat, set timers, and adjust the temperature based on the recipe you’re cooking, right from the app.
Samsung Food debuted at IFA 2023 last year, and these new features are being announced ahead of the tech show taking place in Berlin next week (think Europe’s version of CES). These new food management features help round out the app’s focus on being an ultimate meal planning tool, allowing you to gather recipes from anywhere, more easily input food into your fridge and pantry, and then plan meals based on what you have on hand.
In addition to making it easier to add food to the list, several new automated features should make list maintenance simpler. Once you’ve cooked something, the app can automatically remove it from the food list and add it to the shopping list in the Samsung Food app. When you shop using the list, the app can automatically add the purchased items to your food list – organization nirvana!
The benefit of a grocery list knowing what's in your fridge and pantry and being able to keep that information up to date is a more personalized meal plan that uses the items you have. This can help reduce food waste and grocery bills. While $7 a month is expensive, it could save you that much on monthly grocery bills if it works as advertised.
Samsung Food Plus is now available and, in addition to the features mentioned above, includes a full week of personalized meal plans with recipes based on your nutritional needs, chosen diets and previous recipe preferences. The free version offers three days’ worth of recommendations.
