CrateMate

Turning Spoilage into Strength!

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Inspiration

When the hackathon kicked off, my brother, Sahaj, and I jumped on a call to figure out what we could build together. We didn’t want to make something just for the sake of it. We wanted it to actually help someone. He’s in India and I’m in the USA, so we started swapping stories about what we had been noticing around us lately. Just everyday stuff. That’s when things started to click.

One evening in Gurgaon, India, Sahaj stopped at a small fruit stall on the side of the road. While buying fruits, the vendor quietly shared something that caught him off guard. Most weeks, a good portion of his fruits spoiled before they were sold.

“It goes bad before I even realize,” he said.

That one sentence stuck with him.

Thousands of miles away, I was wrapping up my day as Sahaj was just starting his. During one of our regular sibling calls, morning for me and late night for him, Sahaj told me what the fruit vendor had said. As we talked, we both realized this wasn’t just a small issue. It was a bigger problem that many people were quietly facing.

Back in India, Sahaj started talking to more farmers and vendors in nearby markets. Every story sounded familiar. Fruit that looked perfect a day ago would suddenly go soft. There was no system to warn them and no tool to help. They were doing their best but still losing so much.

We were already interested in building apps, so our first thought was to create a smart digital solution. But the more Sahaj listened to farmers and vendors and shared what he was learning with me, the more we felt that an app alone wasn’t enough. They needed something real. Something they could actually use in their daily routine.

That’s when we thought, what if a bamboo crate that keeps fruits fresh by soaking up extra moisture and slowing down spoilage could help?

Something they could see, touch, and trust. Not just on a screen, but right in their hands. We split up the work. I started developing the app to track spoilage, send alerts, and provide smart storage tips while Sahaj focused on researching the crate’s design and kept speaking to more people on the ground. We knew that to make a real impact, both pieces had to be put together.

So we built both. The app and the crate. Together, they make CrateMate.

CrateMate is more than just an app. It is built for the real world, where margins are tight and every fruit matters. This is a complete product shaped by ground-level research, built with purpose, and created to support voices that are often unheard. Because saving a fruit is not just about reducing waste. It is about protecting the effort behind every harvest.

What it does

CrateMate helps small farmers and fruit sellers reduce spoilage, manage inventory, and make better decisions.

Some of CrateMate features:

  • Shelf-life prediction: Estimates how long each fruit will stay fresh based on type and storage conditions, helping farmers act before the spoilage occurs.

  • Spoilage alerts: Notifies the farmers when fruits are nearing the end of their shelf life, giving time to sell, use, or preserve them.

  • Storage tips: Provides tailored guidance on how to store different types of fruits to extend their freshness and reduce waste.

  • Inventory tracking: Keeps a log of what’s in stock with easy tools to update quantities, varieties, and condition.

  • Multi-language support: Available in over 8 Indian languages so the farmers can navigate the app in the language they’re most comfortable with.

  • Built with Real Crate: CrateMate pairs with a real bamboo-based smart crate that absorbs excess moisture, slows spoilage, and supports tracking in the field, giving farmers something they can actually hold, use, and trust in their day-to-day work.

How we built it

We built the entire frontend using bolt.new, and honestly, it made things way easier. It wasn’t just for planning, we actually designed the screens there, tested out different layouts, and then used the generated code as a base to build and learn from. Being able to see things visually and tweak them on the fly saved us a ton of time, especially when we were figuring out how users would move through the app.

After that, we built everything out using React, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS to keep the interface clean and responsive. We definitely ran into a few issues along the way, things like weird alignment, website not updating properly, or routing bugs. Most of the time, we just figured it out by digging through the console or checking the terminal errors step by step. And since the live preview wasn’t always working in our case due to some issues, we ran the app locally with "npm run dev" so we could test changes in real time and fix things faster.

For the backend, we used Supabase to handle user login, the database, and real-time updates. We set up all the tables ourselves, turned on row-level security to keep user data safe, and used the SQL editor to run migrations and add dummy data when needed. We also made sure to store all our API keys and URLs in a .env file to keep things secure and make deployment smoother.

Alongside the app, we researched the physical crate itself by comparing different types of crates already used in the market. We studied their durability, cost, and materials to understand what worked and what didn’t. We made detailed charts and comparisons between plastic crates, cardboard crates, and our own design to evaluate where CrateMate could do better.

As part of that, we also created visual comparisons and graphic designs to clearly show how our crate stands out in terms of longevity, sustainability, and overall value. We also did market research to estimate the right price range for the crate, aiming to make it affordable while still durable and sustainable.

Everything, from the software to the crate design, was shaped by what we learned from real people, real problems, and real experiences.

Challenges we ran into

  • Preview issues: The preview screen in bolt.new had some unexpected bugs, especially with routing and layout, which slowed us down at times. There was also noticeable lag while building and switching between screens, which made quick changes a bit frustrating. But after a few days of trial and error (and a lot of learning through discord), we figured out it was actually an issue on our end, and got it working smoothly!

  • Time zone difference: One of the biggest challenges was working across time zones. We had a time difference of 10 hours and 30 minutes between us. When it was morning for one of us, it was the middle of the night for the other. Coordinating work sessions, updates, and reviews took extra effort and planning.

  • Manual debugging and testing: We also had to debug a lot of things manually. We had to run the project through the command prompt and trace problems line by line to figure out what was going wrong. This included everything from small styling issues to larger bugs with data fetching and syncing.

  • Finding reliable data during research: While doing market research, it was difficult to find consistent data on local crate usage, spoilage rates, and pricing. A lot of the insights came from informal conversations with farmers and sellers, which made it more real but also harder to validate. We had to cross-check everything manually and instead of relying totally on published sources, we also focused pm on practical observations.

  • Making the crate by hand: Creating the physical crate was completely hands-on. We had to figure out the right materials, size, and structure ourselves, without access to professional tools or manufacturing support. From cutting and assembling parts to adjusting the design for real use, it took time, trial, and a lot of improvising. It wasn’t perfect, but it made the product feel real and reminded us who we were building it for.

  • Keeping the app simple yet complete: Finally, balancing all the features while still keeping the app simple and farmer-friendly was a challenge in itself. We didn’t want to overload the user with too much at once, so we had to think carefully about what to include and how to present it clearly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • We built both the app and the physical crate from scratch. To move faster, we split up the work. One of us focused more on the research, talking to farmers and vendors, collecting insights, comparing crate types, and understanding real-world needs while the other started exploring ideas for the app layout and how the features should work. We designed, built, and tested both the app and the crate ourselves, making sure every part was based on what we had learned.

  • We successfully tested it in a real-world setting. We gave one of our crates to a local fruit seller to see how it would hold up in daily use. He placed his fruits in it and used it throughout the week. He told us that the fruits stayed fresh longer. He said he could actually notice the difference, especially with the ones he usually expects to spoil early. (See in the farmer Testimonial video we took) At the end, he looked at us with a smile and said, “Thank you, bhai (Brother). Keep building things like this. People like us really need it.” That moment felt real. Seeing someone use the crate, noticing the change, and appreciating it in his own words, that’s what made the whole journey worth it.

  • What started as a small idea quickly turned into something real. It began with a simple observation, but grew into a real tool that helps reduce spoilage, supports farmers, and has the potential to grow into something much bigger.

What we learned

  • Neither of us were big experts at coding when we started, but we learned something new every single day. We pushed ourselves to figure things out, used every resource we could find, and focused on making the final product feel thoughtful and elegant. Using bolt.new throughout the process made a huge difference, it helped us turn raw ideas into something real. Being able to design, edit, and preview everything in one place made the entire journey not just doable, but honestly exciting. It taught us that with the right tools and mindset, we could build something that felt far beyond what we thought we were capable of.

  • Talking directly and listening closely to farmers shaped more of our product than any research or spec sheet ever could. Their stories helped us focus on what actually matters, not just what looks good in an app.

  • The right technology doesn’t feel like technology at all, it feels like someone who understands you.

  • We realized that even the smartest software needs to connect with the real world. That’s why building the physical crate made such a difference. It grounded the idea and made it tangible.

  • Simple is powerful. Features don’t need to be complicated. What matters is that they work well, are easy to understand, and genuinely help the people using them.

  • Design takes empathy. We learned how much thought goes into language, layout, and accessibility. Designing for someone who may have never used a digital tool before motivated us further.

  • Working across time zones wasn’t always easy. With more than 10 hours between us, we had to be flexible, stay patient, and communicate clearly to keep things moving and divide tasks in a way that worked for both of us.

  • Every problem taught us something. From debugging broken components to figuring out layout issues, every challenge we faced helped us learn and improve as we built the product.

What's next for CrateMate

After seeing how people responded to the crate and the idea behind it, we believe this could grow into something bigger. With the right support and feedback, CrateMate can reach more farmers and make an even greater impact.

We want to keep improving CrateMate by learning from the people who use it. Our next goal is to test it with more farmers, understand what works well, and find out where we can do better. We’re looking at ways to improve the crate’s design, making it more lighter, more durable, and easier to produce in larger numbers.

On the app side, we want to keep the experience simple while adding features that make it more useful, like better alerts (like SMS alerts), voice support, and adding more languages . CrateMate is still a work in progress, and we’re excited to keep improving it and turning it into something that makes a real difference on the ground.

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