Hi there Sienabv. This sounds like a fantastic idea. Food wastage is a huge issue that contributes vast amounts of greenhouse gases. Wasting family income on over spending on produce that ends up in land fill, needs a solution like yours. 

Have you heard of Glide Apps. It's amazing, allows you to build fully functional apps that you can test on TM and get live data coming back to you.

Hope this helps. Looking forward to seeing your project up and running. 

Also possibly useful 

http://www.fightfoodwastecrc.com.au

Regards,

Hi Sienbv,

This idea is interesting as I also find myself not knowing what to cook or throwing out food items after not having a plan for them. It upsets me to throw away food that is off when only a few days before it was fresh.

Here are a few ideas which came to mind in terms of app functionality:

- To make logging food easier, you try and integrate a receipt scanner/ logging feature. So, after you have purchased a range of food from the grocery store you can use the app to scan your receipt, which then logs all your food items instead of going through them one by one. 

If this is an option, to possibly partner with large supermarkets and have this idea integrated into their apps, as they sometimes have a feature which already logs purchases. This may be necessary as scanning of a receipt may be hard to code into the app.

- To broaden recipes, logging food in the pantry may be helpful. As food in the pantry have a longer shelf life, they are still subjected to expiring and this addition will help to combat extra food expiring. 

- Logging of potential expired food, which wasn't able to be eaten in the time frame could assist the further monitoring of food waste & consumption. The app could use AI to monitor food product consumption and wastage (and liked recipes) to produce future suggestions to meal plans which cater to the interests of the individual/ couple/ family. This would save the users money as they would be buying exactly what is needed. Additionally to this, it would track expenditure, to show the user their savings in the long run, encouraging more app usage/ subscription purchases.

Great job again!

Sienabv, this is a very intriguing idea, with various positive outcomes for individuals and households.

To further elaborate the uses for the application, you could add a shopping list section into the application, where users input their desired quantities of each food to keep in the house. Once the stock at the house is below the desired amount, the item could be added to the shopping list. This would increase the efficiency of the app, attracting more users.

Another potential component to explore would be kilojoule contents and health ratings of different foods. As you mentioned in your post, overconsumption is a household problem affecting a wide variety of people. If possible, an implementation of nutritional information in the app could promote healthier eating habits for potential users.

Attached below is a link to a study on household food waste. The main issue for consumers leading to wastage was linked to purchasing too much food when shopping. I would recommend investigating this component of the problem for further applications to your design.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ijcs.12527

Great work on this project!

Good evening Sienabv. 

Sending out a little UpRising news update. 

Thank you to everyone who has left a comment. They have all been taken into deep consideration and have significantly helped the research and designing of my application!

I am looking forward to posting updates.

Hey Siennabv, My name is Ethan and I'm also a hsc design and tech student, I am doing an extremely similar concept to the point where people may think we copied each other! My app's premise is virtually the same as tracking food in the fridge/pantry. Although where our apps vary is in the physical logging of the products, it was mentioned in one of the comments as well as a suggestion for you, but I am using an image recognition API to scan receipts and that is how the food is logged/stored into a database. Reach out to me if you have any questions or need some help cause we are essentially doing a very similar if not the same idea, I'm happy to share ideas, research and solutions!

Ethan

Hi Sienabv,

This is a very important idea as an Australian household spends an average of $2500 a year on food that is wasted.

like others have mentioned, the possibility of partnering with large supermarkets and integrating your idea into their apps would make it much easier to log products you have purchased, especially if the app records digital receipts.

I have also seen the mention of AI image recognition to scan receipts which is a great idea, however, another suggestion I would like to make is to use QR codes as most phones already have the capabilities to scan them, though it would require most supermarkets to include a QR code on the receipt which will be challenging.

When it comes to syncing across multiple devices, the best option would be to link the users data to an account which would be stored in a cloud server and can be accessed from any device using the same account.

Best of luck.

Hello Sienabv,

A food inventory application sounds like awesome solution to reduce food waste and live more sustainably. As you wish for the data to be synced with other devices, you need to consider data security and privacy. I recommend do research on regulatory bodies regarding data security and privacy. For example, Australia's privacy principles can be found at the link below:
https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/australian-privacy-principles/read-the-australian-privacy-principles

To store the data, you could either use data server or cloud-base service such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or iCloud. Using an API, you could call and sync the data from the database. You could also use an API to search for recipes such as Edamam API, Spoonacular API, Yummly API.

I will be excited to see where take your idea.

Kind regards,
Kai Mitchell

Congratulations Siena you are nearly there.

If you could update the image on your Post to show a little collage of your projects development that would be fantastic. We will be awarding the top three UpRising design projects for 2024 and the UpRising alliance and community love to see the journey of your design.

There is a little feedback survey, if you could fill it in that would fantastic as it really helps us to understand how we can better help next years design students.

https://forms.gle/XLgNBqQepAw2Go5q7

It also has an option for you to select if you would like to continue to be involved in UpRising next year and beyond. Lots of interesting ways to continue to build connections within the design industry. Great for your resume and career paths.

Wishing you all the best with your trials and finishing touches on your MDP.

Shout out if we can help in any way.

Great to see the lartest up date of your project Sienabv. It is looking fantastic. 

Good luck with final handin. I'm sure you will smash it.

I see the comment from EthanD in your thread. UpRising is very interested in collaboration and we we would like to invite you both to a creative industry event coming up in November ( yes after those nasty exams). We would love to know if you both are interested in attending?