From Recipe Photo to Checkout: Favour is a Free Kiwi App Making Dinner Easier
Free to every home cook, Favour is the Kiwi app with the power to turn any recipe—from a cookbook photo to a TikTok link—into a ready-to-shop Woolworths order in seconds. By removing the cost barrier, the app is reshaping meal-planning and DIY meal-kits, offering greater freedom, lower grocery bills, and better cooking experiences.
For founder Nick Gilbert it wasn’t about building another meal kit. He was trying to fix one. “Everyone loves the idea of meal kits, but when it comes to the actual process, there are so many things wrong,” he says. This frustration of rigid delivery windows, high prices, and wasted food became the spark for Favour, and has quickly turned into a fast-growing Kiwi platform changing the way home cooks plan, shop, and get dinner on the table.
Favour turns any recipe into a costed shopping list using real-time supermarket prices, then sends it straight to a Woolworths cart. Users can select recipes from anywhere: cookbooks, screenshots, food blogs, favourite creators, or online authors.
“It’s all the benefits of a meal kit, but at half the price,” says Gilbert. Unlike traditional kits, users aren’t locked into preselected meals or fixed delivery windows. They can shop for the week in minutes, using the recipes they genuinely want to cook.
The app didn’t begin as Gilbert’s idea. The original MVP was built by developer Dave Hancock, who created a prototype for himself. When Gilbert experienced it, something clicked. “I saw it and thought, ‘This is amazing.’ I got really excited about it immediately,” he says. He bought the technology through the company and brought Hancock on as an advisor.
At the time, Gilbert and his family were spending $240 a week on a meal kit, plus the cost of their regular grocery shop. “So you’re spending $400 to $450 a week, and you’re still spending time in the supermarket anyway.” Worse, meal kits were only delivered on Sundays, sometimes sitting on the doorstep for hours while the family was away. “That was the real frustration for us.”His own pain points reflected a wider market problem. “New Zealand has the highest meal-kit penetration in the world, with 7% of households using one each year,” Gilbert says.
For Gilbert, dinner time is one of the most meaningful rituals in a household. “It’s the one time everyone sits down and actually has a conversation. When you have good food, it adds so much to that experience.” Favour’s purpose is to make that easier, more joyful, and more personal.
It also solves the biggest frustration of home cooking: figuring out what ingredients are needed across multiple meals. “Normally you’re translating grams into cups, pounds into grams, figuring out how much of something you need for the whole week. Favour answers all of that for you.”
Beyond helping households, Favour has carved out a surprising second customer: food brands. The app currently partners with brands such as Whittaker’s, to provide them with useful market data. Instead of displaying intrusive ads, Favour uses the aggregated data of over 35,000 users to help brands understand cooking trends and product demand. “They love it,” Gilbert says. “We’re telling them what they should be making based on recipe trends and what flavour profiles people are craving.” This B2B model also keeps the app free for users.
Getting to this point hasn’t been linear. Favour is now on its third pivot, having moved from a commission-based revenue model to one focused on brand partnerships. Gilbert describes the company’s journey as testing, learning, and refining, but always guided by the same mission: make home cooking easier, cheaper, and more enjoyable.
Entrepreneurship wasn’t always on the cards for Gilbert, who began his career as a mechanical engineer designing buildings. After meeting his Canadian partner overseas, he worked in management consulting and sales before deciding to leap into tech. “I’d always wanted to start my own business,” he says. “When I saw this opportunity, I just jumped into it.”
The shift came with sacrifices, particularly the early years without income while building the product, but Gilbert credits the support of his partner and a growing belief that Favour could have global impact. ”
Looking ahead, Gilbert’s vision is for Favour to become the go-to meal-planning platform in New Zealand and Australia, before expanding further. He envisions a future where the app integrates not just supermarkets, but local markets, greengrocers, and specialty stores, giving households the ability to shop according to their values.
“If we can offer a better experience at half the price, we could reach well beyond the 7% of households currently using meal kits,” he says. “The app should know you and your household intuitively. It should make life easier.”
For Gilbert, the end goal is simple: get more people cooking quality meals, more often, with less stress. And for a growing number of Kiwi households—and soon, the brands that fuel their kitchens—Favour is becoming an indispensable ingredient.
Interview and story by Leighton Littlewood.
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