Build/Food & Nutrition
◈Food & Nutrition Namespace

Build a nutrition business.
13,500+ foods, owned data.

The global diet and nutrition app market is worth billions, and most small fitness products still can't afford to license a clean nutrition database. We ingested USDA FoodData Central — 13,500+ foods with full macro and micronutrient breakdowns — into our own database. No third-party calls, no rate limits, no licensing risk for you.

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The opportunity

Real numbers. No projections inflated to impress.

13,500+
USDA foods in our owned database
Ingested from FoodData Central, public domain
0
Third-party API calls at runtime
Fully owned, ingested data — no upstream rate limits
10
Endpoints across search, macros, vitamins, minerals, diet filters
All owned data — no third-party rate limits
$9–29
Monthly Aplicious cost for most indie apps
Starter/Growth plan covers typical embed volume

5 businesses you can build this month

Each one is a complete business, not a demo. Revenue estimates are conservative and show the math. These are illustrative estimates based on stated assumptions, not guarantees of revenue.

Fitness and diet apps need a fast, reliable food database to let users log meals. MacroLog is a drop-in search-and-log widget: type a food, get calories/protein/carbs/fat instantly, no manual entry. Sell as a B2B embed to smaller fitness apps that don't want to build their own nutrition database.

Pricing Model
$49/month per app (B2B SaaS embed)
Build Time
2–3 weeks solo
Revenue Target
$2,450/month
Gross Margin
98% gross margin
Revenue Math

50 small fitness/diet apps × $49. There are thousands of niche fitness apps on Product Hunt and the App Store that have no nutrition backend — this is a real gap.

Endpoints Used
/food/search
/food/nutrients
/food/meal-nutrition
Aplicious Cost
$29 (Growth plan — 50 apps × 15 × 30 = 22,500 calls/mo)
~15 calls/day per active app

All 10 endpoints

All owned data, ingested from USDA FoodData Central. No third-party calls, no licensing risk, no rate limits.

Starter code — MacroLog

Search, then fetch the full nutrient profile of the top match. Two calls, complete macro breakdown.

macrolog.ts
// MacroLog — Nutrition Lookup Widget
// Built with Aplicious Food namespace
// Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your key from aplicious.com/dashboard

const API_BASE = "https://aplicious.com/api/v1";
const API_KEY = "YOUR_API_KEY";

async function lookupFood(query: string) {
  const search = await fetch(
    `${API_BASE}/food/search?query=${encodeURIComponent(query)}&limit=5`,
    { headers: { "x-api-key": API_KEY } }
  ).then((r) => r.json());

  if (search.data.total_results === 0) return null;

  const top = search.data.results[0];
  const detail = await fetch(
    `${API_BASE}/food/nutrients?fdc_id=${top.fdc_id}`,
    { headers: { "x-api-key": API_KEY } }
  ).then((r) => r.json());

  return {
    name: top.name,
    calories: detail.data.nutrients.calories,
    protein: detail.data.nutrients.protein,
    carbs: detail.data.nutrients.carbohydrates,
    fat: detail.data.nutrients.total_fat,
  };
}

// Example output:
// { name: "Banana, raw", calories: 89, protein: 1.1, carbs: 22.8, fat: 0.3 }

Revenue calculator

Slide to see how the numbers stack up. The API cost is real — pulled from our pricing page.

50
5500
Gross MRR
$2,450
at $49/customer
Aplicious Plan
Growth ($29)
22,500 calls/mo
API Cost
$29
per month
Net MRR
$2,421
98.8% margin

Model: MacroLog — $49/month per B2B app customer, ~15 API calls/customer/day. API plan auto-selects based on call volume. These are revenue projections, not guarantees. Build quality and distribution determine actual results.

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Start building today

Free plan. 250 API calls per month. No credit card required. The Food namespace is live and ready.

Questions? Talk to us