How We Use Privacy-First App Analytics at meal&heal — Without Selling Our Users' Data
TelemetryDeck helps us understand how people use meal&heal—without collecting personal data. With privacy-friendly insights, we improve features, fix bugs faster, and build more trust with our users. A case study by Stefan Wobbe, Co-Founder of meal&heal.
Only about 10% of all food intolerances can currently be diagnosed reliably through lab tests. And even for that small number, the average time to diagnosis is around eight years. That delay makes it incredibly hard to offer timely, personalized nutritional therapy for people suffering from diet-related conditions like IBS, eczema, rheumatism, or migraines.
As a team, we felt this gap deeply. My co-founder Michelle Hoffmann experienced this firsthand – both as a nutrition scientist and as someone who struggled with undiagnosed intolerances for years. Together with Lukas Jochheim and me, she decided to build a solution that could truly help people.
That’s how meal&heal was born: a healthcare app that helps users identify their personal food triggers and build customized nutrition strategies. Today, hundreds of people are already using the app to improve their health! And we’re just getting started.
But there was one thing we didn’t want to compromise on: our users’ privacy.
meal&heal
meal&heal offers a scientifically backed therapeutic approach to diet-related symptoms and diseases—helping those who currently have no effective treatment options.
Why we needed a new kind of analytics tool
From day one, we knew we’d need an analytics tool. Not to spy on users—but to learn which features were being used, where bugs appeared, and how we could make the app better.
At the same time, we were handling very personal, sensitive data. Gut health, diet tracking, symptom logging—this is not the kind of data you hand over to Big Tech.
So we asked ourselves: Can we get the insights we need, without violating our users’ trust?
We quickly ruled out the usual suspects like Google Analytics. In our eyes, people should not be the product. And when you integrate Google Analytics, that’s exactly what you’re doing: handing your users’ behavior to a company built on advertising.
Sure, you could argue it’s fine in a free app. But in a paid app that deals with people’s health? No way.
That’s why we started looking for a privacy-first, GDPR-compliant, and cookie-free alternative. One that aligned with our values—and with the expectations of our users.
How we integrated TelemetryDeck's analytics SDK to our Flutter codebase
We came across TelemetryDeck while researching analytics tools designed for ethical app development. The moment we saw it, we knew we were onto something.
The initial onboarding was incredibly smooth.
“We just added the TelemetryDeck Flutter package into our codebase, and it worked right out of the box. We barely had to look at the docs.”
On the web side, we had some slightly more complex use cases, like tracking specific button clicks, but even that took just about 30 minutes to figure out. And when we needed help, their support team replied right away, with a ready-to-use script and a clear explanation. That kind of service really stood out.
So in short:
- Easy Flutter SDK integration ✅
- Custom event tracking on the web ✅
- Responsive support that actually helps ✅
What we’re tracking in our app — and why
With TelemetryDeck, we can now collect the insights we need to improve meal&heal, without collecting any personal data.
We’re tracking things like:
- Which features of the app are used most frequently
- Whether new features are being discovered and used
- Specific actions like button clicks or drop-offs on our landing page
- Bug reports and technical issues
These analytics help us optimize our app, fix issues faster, and make smarter product decisions. And we do all of this without cookies, without fingerprinting, and without personal identifiers.
In terms of raw data, we don’t get more than we would from Google Analytics. But that’s the point: we collect far less—and that’s exactly why it feels right.
What I’ve learned about privacy in apps, and what I’d tell other developers
Let’s be honest: Analytics is seductive. It’s easy, powerful, and often free. But that should raise red flags. Because if a complex, global tracking service is free, that usually means you’re the product. Or worse: your users are.
As developers, we need to take that seriously. We need to be more conscious about the tools we use and how they align with our users’ expectations and rights.
For us, choosing a privacy-respecting analytics tool like TelemetryDeck was a no-brainer. It gives us the insights we need, without violating the trust of the people who rely on us.
If you're building an app and care about user trust, I’d say:
👉 Take the extra step. Ditch the cookie banners. Use tools that respect privacy by default.