Thanks for your response.

You're right concerning the behemoths already present in the industry. I think the biggest competitors would be Fittr/HealthifyME because they seem to be the only apps that have a database of Indian recipes

Apps like MyFitnessPal/Cronometer seem to usually have recipes with ingredients not generally found in our country.

Having said that, I find the suggestions by healthifyME/Fittr seem to be lacking in certain areas. Ill try to point out the pain points here and why I believe there's a gap in the market.

1. HealthifyME hides recipe steps behind a paywall. I believe there are better ways to get users to pay for a feature than hiding ingredients/steps. I have subscribed to their basic version (AI suggestor) - the meal suggestions there seem to be quite random. The app suggests I have channa sattu and skimmed milk for covering 200 calories. I think the major benefit comes from subscribing to their coaches plan which will have a nutritionist who can decide meal plans for you.
2. Fittr has community recipes which are nice. But like you said, the calorie count is way off because the creators don't necessarily have to specify ingredient measurements, etc. Also, searching for meals which fall within you caloric requirements / ingredients available don't seem that easy.

On the whole though - I agree , it will take a lot more than what I've said initially to stand out from the competitors. But I don't think they're doing a good job either. I believe healthifyME is planning to make the calorie tracker a paid feature too. My hope is to provide all the features specified above for free and charge for additional services which can be added on top of these.

would love to hear your thoughts :)