Sossell Menu Search -Nutrition and Allergy App

Problem:
Eating out while following a dietary restriction or living with food allergies is a daunting task. The steps required to find meals that fit is lengthy and for individuals with such restrictions, dining out is the last thing they will do.  Over 250M globally have food allergies with 32M Americans living with Food Allergies and each year around 200,000 Americans seek emergency medical care due to food allergies. Food Allergies cost the U.S. economy $24.8 billion a year and they have created a “free-from” food industry at $12 billion.

Solution:
Sossell Menu Search is a mobile application that provides nutritional and allergen information of restaurant menus based on your location and customized filters (calories, carbs, allergens, etc.). The steps taken to find the right meals are considerably reduced on our app. Users can easily search by cuisine, restaurant name, menu item, preferences (e.g. 500 calories, 1800mg sodium, etc.), and dietary/lifestyle such as Vegan, Paleo, Halal, etc.. If our user or a loved one is living with one or multiple food allergies, they  easily can filter out a combination of over 30+ allergens (egg, gluten, sesame, fish, etc.)  making easier to find meals that fit their needs.

Business Model:
Premium access- 
We are using a freemium model where users are given access to limited functionality. Users can upgrade to access the full functionality of the app.  
On an average basis, we have 23 new monthly users signing up to the mobile app organically with no paid ads. We have received feedback from users who are willing to upgrade to add more local and healthy restaurant menu data/items as the app only has 200 restaurants across the US.

To combat this, we have identified a few key locations (through monitoring of user visit locations) within the US to gather more local and healthy restaurant menu data with the goal of 300-500 restaurants per city.

Selling Ad space: 
As we grow our user base, we will be selling ad spaces to restaurants and other companies that sell food and food related items to our consumers.

Selling data through APIs:
We are looking to  sell data (restaurant menus, nutrition and allergen details, restaurant locations, etc.) through APIs to fitness and nutrition apps.

Customers:
1- Individuals following a diet plan to meet caloric, sugar, carbs, sodium and protein goals
2- individuals living with or have family members living with allergies
3- individuals following a dietary lifestyle such as Vegan, Halal, Paleo, etc.

Team:
Computer Engineer and Chemist based out of Omaha, Nebraska, USA

All progress on the app has been self-funded. We are seeking $500k to improve and expand database rapidly to address the needs of our current and future customers and families.