What if meal planning could save you money, reduce food waste, and make grocery shopping smarter with AI?
In this episode of the Code to Cloud Podcast, Kevin sits down with Jacob Deinum, systems programmer and founder of Annona, to discuss how he's rethinking the way we shop, cook, and manage food. Built with Rust, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, and Docker Compose, Anona is an AI-powered meal planning platform designed to optimize grocery shopping, reduce food waste, and help families save money.
Jacob shares the story of building Anona from scratch on a single basement server, creating a scalable architecture with minimal dependencies, and using AI to solve practical, everyday challenges. From determining whether it's more cost-effective to buy pre-made guacamole or make it from scratch, to generating optimized weekly meal plans based on budget, nutrition, pantry inventory, and time, Anona demonstrates how thoughtful software engineering can improve daily life.
During the conversation, we discuss:
- Jacob's background in systems programming
- Why Rust is the foundation of Anona
- Building scalable software with a small, efficient tech stack
- Using AI to personalize meal planning
- Reducing household food waste through technology
- Creating new revenue opportunities for recipe creators
- Lessons learned building a startup as a solo founder
- The future of programming and AI-assisted software development
This episode is for software developers, entrepreneurs, startup founders, and anyone interested in AI, sustainability, food technology, and building products that solve real-world problems.
About Jacob Deinum
Jacob Deinum is a systems programming expert and startup founder focused on food technology, artificial intelligence, and open-source software. Through Anona, he is building technology that helps make food more affordable while reducing waste across the food supply chain.
Links
Code to Cloud
https://codetocloud.io
Code to Cloud Podcast
https://codetocloud.io/podcast
Anona
https://annona.ca/
