Boulangez

Overview

Boulangez is a bakery and food business that wanted its customers to order from their phones instead of by calling or visiting. We designed and built the mobile app together with the server that stores the menu and receives the orders. The audience is the bakery's regular customers: people who want to see what is available, choose, and collect or receive their food with as little effort as possible.

The Challenge

Bakery ordering has awkward requirements that a generic delivery marketplace handles poorly. Stock is finite and perishable, so a tray of croissants can vanish by mid-morning and the menu has to reflect that. Boulangez needed an app that felt like its own shop, a menu the team could change without a developer, and orders that reached staff in a form they could act on straight away.

Who Uses It and How

There are two kinds of people in this system. The first is the customer, who opens the app, scans the categories, adds items to a basket and places an order, then later returns to see past orders and repeat a favourite. The second is the bakery team, who need to publish menu changes, mark items unavailable when they run out, and watch incoming orders during the morning rush.

Our Approach

We chose one app for both major phone platforms so the bakery would not have to fund two builds. The design puts the menu first: categories at the top, clear product images and prices, and an order flow that keeps the number of taps low. Behind the app we built a Laravel API so that the menu, prices, availability and orders all live in one place the business controls.

What We Built

Customers browse by category, open a product for details, add it to a basket, review the order and place it. Accounts let returning customers see their details and earlier orders without starting from scratch. On the server, the API manages products, categories, customer accounts and orders and exposes them to the app over authenticated requests. Staff-facing tools let the business edit the menu and follow incoming orders.

Architecture and Data

Categories contain products; products carry a name, description, image, price and an availability flag; customers own orders; orders contain line items that snapshot the price at the time of purchase, so a later price change never rewrites history. The Flutter app talks to the Laravel API over HTTPS using token-based authentication.

Security, Privacy and Quality

An ordering app holds names, contact details and order histories, so customer data is limited to what the service needs and each account can only read its own orders. The API validates every input on the server rather than trusting the app, and passwords are stored hashed. Where card payment is offered, card entry is best left to a certified payment provider. On quality, we test the API with automated feature tests covering ordering, availability and access rules, and we check the app on real handsets of different screen sizes.

Technology

Flutter gives a single codebase that runs natively on Android and iOS, keeping the interface consistent and lowering the cost of every later change. Laravel powers the API because it provides authentication, validation, database handling and background jobs out of the box.

Outcome

Boulangez has its own branded ordering channel. Customers get a quick way to see the menu and order from their phone, and the business receives orders in a structured form instead of through phone calls. Because the menu is managed centrally through the API, the team can adjust products and prices without releasing a new version of the app.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to build a food ordering app for a bakery?

The price depends mainly on scope: whether you need iOS and Android, whether payments are taken in the app, how many roles use it, and whether staff tools and notifications are included. A cross-platform framework such as Flutter reduces cost compared with two native builds.

Should a bakery build its own app or use a delivery marketplace?

Marketplaces bring existing traffic but they own the customer relationship and usually take a commission on each order. A dedicated app lets you keep customer data, control the brand and the menu, and offer collection or loyalty features on your terms.

Can the bakery change its menu without updating the app?

Yes, provided the app reads its menu from a server, which is how this one works. Products, prices and availability are stored in the API and the app fetches them when opened, so changes appear straight away without an app store release.