Home Chef, a subsidiary of Kroger, is the third largest meal kit company in the U.S. As Home Chef was scaling their business, and providing new offerings to their growing customer base, they were looking for a modern framework with extensibility to support their new service offerings. They brought in Foxbox Digital to rebuild their mobile app with React Native, a modern cross-platform app framework, to help them achieve their ambitious goals.

Through our engagement with Home Chef, we developed and published iOS and Android apps using React Native. This helped them significantly increase app store ratings, meal kit conversions, and user engagement rates.

Here’s how we did it:

We focused on building a great experience from the ground-up

We knew that re-platforming to React Native was only one part of the solution. We worked closely with the CTO & Head of Product to deliver an experience that delighted their customers.

Here are three of the core activities we focused on:

• Re-architecture - We provided early architectural recommendations based on their future technical and business goals. This included a revised roadmap that better fit their goals to maximize customer impact.
• Experience Design - We seamlessly collaborated with the UX team to ensure the app was instantly responsive to the end user.
• Speed - Customers added their first item to the shopping cart 20% faster than with the previous app.

Foxbox Digital’s deep technical knowledge of React Native helped us move quickly through technical roadblocks. In early stages of the development, they guided us through architecture decision and foresaw many of the issues we would run into with our current development setup. If you’re looking for React Native developers, I can’t recommend them enough. - Matt Pulley, CTO, Home Chef

We launched in less than 3 months

With thousands of paying customers on the platform already, and owned by a large subsidiary, speed-to-market is often not feasible. Our deep knowledge of React Native and our philosophy of tight product and engineering coordination allowed us to build the new iOS and Android application 40% faster than a typical organization.

Here’s a breakdown of how we were able to move so fast.

• Deep React Native Experience - Our engineering team is focused on the React Native platform. This allows us to provide deeper recommendations and build a modern architecture best suited for React Native.
• Strong Relationships and Coordination With Engineering, Product, and Design - We know that developing an application isn’t just a list of requirements. We start every project by determining the specific goals of each team and work closely with each stakeholder to build the best product possible.
• Feedback Inspired Development- We were instrumental through the beta testing phase ensuring a fast feedback loop from their most valuable customers, prior to launch. We quickly iterated to implement the feedback, which led to a successful launch.

I think the app is easy to use as well as navigate. I even like the new look to the app. I’ve tried other meal services and this was the best! -clbfashiongurl

We enabled them to build better features based on data

Prior to engaging with us, Home Chef was having a difficult time experimenting with mobile features. Here’s how we resolved that.

• Embedded Customer Behavior Data Analytics - We knew that to improve the experience of the app, we had to collect data at every major customer interaction. We worked directly with their executive marketing team to implement Amplitude to track key user data points and define the events they needed to track.
• Native A/B Testing - We implemented A/B Multivariate testing functionality. Now, instead of guessing which functionality makes the customer happier, it is simple to deploy A/B Testing for both iOS and Android.
• Increase Development Velocity - With React Native and Expo, they're able to publish weekly updates with the push of a button. Allows them to collect fast feedback from customers.

Simply put, Foxbox Digital was amazing from start to finish. Their maturity in understanding our product, engineering, design, and business needs was exactly what we needed. They were proactive and intentional in every decision they brought forward. This product is core to our experience and we couldn’t have imagined a better partner than Foxbox Digital. - Julian Rockwood, Head of Consumer Product, Home Chef.

If you enjoyed this case study and you’re looking for a React Native development agency that can help you the same way we helped Home Chef, feel free to reach out.

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Tech Stack

• React Native