INDUSTRY:
MOBILE APP / CONSUMER LOYALTY
CLIENT:
MERRYFIELD (ACQUIRED BY ATTAIN)
ROLE:
LEAD PRODUCT DESIGNER
FOCUS:
UI/UX,
BUSINESS STRATEGY,
RESEARCH & ANALYTIC,
PRODUCT MAINTENANCE,
SCALING
A Rewards App for "Better-for-You" Products
about.
Merryfield is a better-for-you rewards app that helps people choose healthier, clean-label groceries — and rewards them for doing it. Founded by a former healthcare investor and a Whole Foods executive, it launched on iOS in 2020 with 16 founding brands, including Applegate, Beyond Meat, and Califia Farms.
I led product design on Merryfield's multi-year evolution phase — setting the design direction while directing and mentoring a small team of junior-to-mid designers. The initial launch had proven the concept; my role was to grow it: leading the design as it scaled from a simple iOS rewards app into a personalized, habit-forming, cross-platform experience, in close partnership with Merryfield's product and engineering leadership.
challenge.
Objectives:
Grow engagement and retention without complicating the core loop
Make offers personal and make earning rewards near-effortless
Build the brand's clean-label mission into the product, not just around it
Expand to Android and unify development across both platforms
Constraints:
A live product with thousands of users and high ratings to protect
A deliberately simple v1 that couldn't be overloaded
Two platforms to support with limited resources
A two-sided model — users and brand partners — to keep balanced
By the time I joined, Merryfield had launched and proven the core idea — but a proof of concept isn't a growth engine. The app was iOS-only, the experience was deliberately simple, and the rewards loop worked without yet building the habits or personalization that drive long-term retention.
The challenge was to evolve a live, well-reviewed product into something richer and stickier — more personal, more engaging, and available on a second platform — without adding friction to the simple loop that made it work in the first place.
approach.
Merryfield's own motto — "we start by starting" — matched how I worked: ship small, learn fast, refine. Instead of big-bang redesigns, I evolved the product feature by feature, each as a focused MVP validated against real usage data, user testing, and brand feedback. Every change was weighed against both sides of the marketplace: would it help users build a healthy-shopping habit, and would it strengthen the case for brand and retail partners?
key decision 1/5.
Keep the Core Reward Loop Effortless
The discipline here was restraint — protecting the simplicity of the first run even as the product grew more capable underneath it.
The heart of Merryfield is a simple exchange: buy better-for-you products, earn points, redeem them for gift cards. Early testing surfaced a clear insight — first-time users didn't need the app's full depth up front; they needed to succeed at earning a reward fast. So I distilled the core experience into three steps anyone could complete on their first grocery trip:
Activate an offer — browse partner-brand offers and activate the ones you want before shopping.
Scan your receipt — after checkout, submit a receipt and earn points on every qualifying product.
Redeem your points — cash them in for gift cards from brands and retailers you already use.
Everything more advanced stayed one layer back, surfacing only once users were hooked on this basic loop.
key decision 2/5.
Make It Personal and Frictionless
+18% increase in engagement
+21% increase in receipt submissions
Personalization made offers worth opening; auto-scanning made earning near-passive — together they turned earning rewards from a manual chore into a habit.
A flat list of offers treats every shopper the same. To drive repeat engagement, I introduced personalization — surfacing offers matched to each user's interests and shopping behavior, starting with a tailored onboarding and continuing throughout the app. I also removed the biggest point of friction in the earn loop: manual receipt submission. By letting users connect a retailer account so receipts auto-scrape after purchase, earning rewards became near-passive — no manual capture required.
key decision 3/5.
Educational Purpose
Most rewards apps stop at the transaction. Building the "why" into the product is what made Merryfield a guide people trusted, not just a points wallet.
Merryfield's real differentiator isn't points — it's the mission: helping people understand what "better-for-you" actually means. I built that conviction into the product. Working with healthy-living brands, I designed educational content that explains what makes a product a smart, healthy choice — embedding the brand's standards directly into the shopping experience instead of leaving them as marketing around it.
key decision 4/5.
Business Goals & Retention Growth
Letting people earn from a QR code in the browser — no install required — turned the in-store shelf itself into the top of the acquisition funnel.
Beyond improving the core experience, a big part of my work was helping Merryfield scale — designing new reward types that drove retention and strengthened the case for partners. During a strategy design sprint, I helped shape the long-term product vision, then delivered against it iteratively.
The clearest retention win was an in-store rewards program piloted with Cornerstone and the Fresh Thyme Market chain. I designed a lightweight flow around an in-store QR code: a shopper scans the code on a product tag, which opens a mini web app in the browser and lets them claim the offer on the spot — no app install required. Removing that install barrier made it far easier to convert new users right at the shelf.
From there, I extended rewards beyond the grocery aisle. I designed a program that rewards users for visiting local better-for-you eateries — places like Panera Bread and Sweetgreen — so Merryfield could meet people wherever they were making healthy choices, not only while grocery shopping. That work set up the next expansion, now in progress: rewards for healthy-lifestyle services like gyms, fitness studios, and wellness apps, broadening "better-for-you" from food into overall wellbeing.
Alongside these, referral mechanics turned engaged users into a growth channel. Each feature strengthened both sides of the marketplace: more reasons to return for users, and richer reach and data for brand and retail partners.
key decision 5/5.
Scale to a Second Platform Efficiently
The win wasn't a second app — it was a shared foundation that lowered the cost of every future feature across both platforms.
Demand — from both users and partners — made Android essential. But the strategic question wasn't just how to build an Android app; it was how to support two platforms without doubling the cost. I led the design of the Android experience and, alongside engineering, the move to a shared React Native codebase: building Android first, then migrating iOS onto the same foundation. The Android app mirrored the polished iOS experience while adapting to platform-native patterns so it felt right to Android users — and the later iOS migration was invisible to existing users, a friction-free transition with no disruption to the experience or its ratings.
result.
+18% — Engagement
+21% — Receipt submissions
26% — Reduction in two-app development effort (React Native)
4.9 / 4.7 — iOS / Android app store ratings
The evolution turned a simple, single-platform rewards app into a personalized, cross-platform product that grew engagement and held consistently high ratings — while supporting the business's expansion into new users, brands, and retailers.
Engagement rose 18% and receipt submissions climbed 21% as personalization and automation reduced friction in the core loop.
The React Native migration cut two-app development and maintenance effort by 26%, lowering the cost of every feature going forward.
Both apps held strong, consistent ratings — 4.9 on iOS and 4.7 on Android — through and after the migration.
The work supported Merryfield's growth into new segments and partnerships, contributing to the momentum behind its acquisition by Attain.
The proof is in the pudding: all you have to do is look at our NPS scores, our App Store ratings and reviews, and the things people tell us unprompted through the customer service channel. That's a superpower we have, and that is due to our team at Whitespectre.
Jamie Aindow
Co-Founder & Head of Digital Product
