With AI food recognition Samsung Food could be the ultimate meal-planning app

New features on Samsung’s AI-powered food and recipe app could make your meal planning and food management chores much easier. With Samsung Food, you can now add items to a Food List just by taking a picture. The app can then suggest recipes based on the food you have, automatically remove them when you cook a recipe using anything on the list, then add food items back to the list when you tick them off your shopping list.

The Food List was previously only accessible via the SmartThings app and the built-in tablet on Samsung’s Family Hub smart fridges, limiting its usefulness. Now, as part of the cross-platform Samsung Food app, it could turn the service into a really useful all-in-one shopping, food management, meal planning, and cooking app.

But it will cost you. These new features are part of Samsung Food Plus, a paid tier of the free food management app. The service is $6.99 a month ($59.99 a year) and, in addition to the Food List feature, removes ads from the app, offers a tailored seven-day meal plan, allows users to personalize recipes using AI, and tracks nutrition goals. The app works on both iOS and Android and on the web, it requires a Samsung Account.

I tested Samsung Food last year, and while I liked how easy it was to import recipes from anywhere and how it tailored a meal plan for me every week, adding items to the food list and the fact that the meal plan didn’t suggest recipes based on the list were frustrating. With this update, both of those complaints have been addressed.

Samsung says the service now creates meal plans based on your food list and prioritizes items “nearing use-by date” (this has to be set manually). Plus, a new “Search with Your Food List” feature lets you easily find a recipe based on what you have. All this should make meal planning and shopping much 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. This leverages your phone’s camera to identify items to add to your Food List. Just snap a picture of whatever is in your pantry or fridge, and the ingredients will be added to the list.

Vision AI is also in the latest Family Hub fridge, where its in-unit AI-powered cameras can automatically add certain foods to the Food List. However, Samsung says the app version can identify over 40,000 types of ingredients using your smartphone’s camera, compared to just 33 the fridge can spot. This is because the fridge processes the images locally, whereas the app can leverage cloud processing.

Samsung Food also features AI-guided cooking steps that integrate with compatible Samsung ovens to preheat, set timers, and adjust the temperature according to 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 in Berlin next week (think Europe’s version of CES). These new food management features help complete the app’s focus on being an ultimate meal planning tool, allowing you to collate recipes from anywhere, more easily input the food in your fridge and pantry, and then plan meals based on what you have on hand.

In addition to making adding food items to the list easier, several new automated features should simplify maintaining that list. 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 items purchased to your food list — organizational nirvana!

The benefit of a food list that knows what’s in your fridge and pantry and can keep that knowledge up to date is a more tailored meal plan that uses items you have. This can help cut down on 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 rolling out now, and in addition to the features mentioned above, it includes a full week of tailored meal plans with recipes based on your nutritional needs, chosen diets, and previous recipe preferences. The free version offers three days of recommendations.