Recipe Collection Portability After Yummly Data Loss Crisis

mobile app weekend hack •• multiple requests

When Yummly shut down, users could only export recipes one at a time. Thousands lost years of saved collections overnight. There is no standard format for recipe data and no tool that imports from one platform and exports to another. Every recipe app is a data silo. Users want a personal recipe vault they own, with importers for every major platform.

builder note

The JSON-LD Recipe schema (schema.org/Recipe) already exists as a web standard. Build an app that stores recipes in this format locally, with importers that scrape from Paprika's export, Plan to Eat's format, and any URL with schema.org markup. The moat is the importer library. Every time a recipe app dies or raises prices, you get a wave of new users.

landscape (4 existing solutions)

Every recipe app is a data silo. Tandoor proves self-hosted portability works but demands technical setup. The Yummly crisis proved that cloud recipe collections can vanish overnight. Nobody has built a consumer-friendly recipe vault with universal importers (Paprika, Mealime, AllRecipes, Samsung Food) and standard export formats (JSON-LD Recipe schema, PDF, plain text).

Paprika (import) Can import from URLs one at a time. No bulk import from other platforms. No export to competing formats. Your recipes are locked in Paprika's proprietary format.
Plan to Eat Built a Yummly import tool but it only works for recipes that still redirect to original blog URLs. Saved notes, modifications, and personal recipes are lost forever.
Samsung Food (Whisk) Free with recipe saving and 4.5M community members. But no import from other apps. Another data silo with no export guarantee.
Tandoor Recipes Self-hosted, open source, supports import from several formats. Closest to the portability ideal but requires Docker setup. Not accessible to non-technical home cooks.

sources (2)

other https://www.facebook.com/yummly/posts/before-december-20th-y... "before December 20th you can download selected content" 2024-12-01
other https://learn.plantoeat.com/help/import-recipes-from-yummly "Import Recipes from Yummly" 2025-01-01
cookingdata-portabilitylocal-firstconsumeropen-standard