EfficientEats

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  My Fridge (Ingredients Overview)

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  Recipe Overview

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  Profile View

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  add a new Item

Inspiration

As a single household, I often encounter two common problems: "What should I cook?" and "Could grocery items potentially spoil?". I had the idea of creating an app that tackles this optimization problem. Just consider the staggering amount of wasted groceries each year. The objective is to develop an app that assists users in effectively managing their groceries, resulting in reduced food waste. This hands-on approach would not only save households money but also contribute to environmental preservation.

What it does

We have a database, that stores ingredients and recipes. Users can input various ingredients into their "digital fridge" to keep track of their groceries at home. Each ingredient in the database includes the value "expirationTime," which estimates how long it takes for the ingredient to spoil. Once an ingredient is entered, we calculate the estimated date when it is likely to spoil. The app then alerts the user about items that may be nearing their expiration and offers recipes to help them efficiently consume their goods before they spoil. Ingredients and Recipes for the database can be imported from Chefkoch! The expirationTime is currently based on estimations. The user can set a different expirationDate if he judges the state of ingredient differently.

How we built it

We used a Back4App backend, to persist the data. Data can be accessed via REST-API. Our frontend is an iOS-App built with SwiftUI, which grabs the data via an API-call. The Chefkoch Import is implemented as python application.

Challenges we ran into

• searching for a feasible backend
  
• getting to know Back4App and persisting the data (didn't work the first time, had to rebuild database)
  
• connecting frontend and backend (documentation was a bit outdated)
  
• filtering the API response and presenting the data in the app
  
• miscommunication lead to discrepancy causing the Python script to malfunction with the Swift-API-Call

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• having a common ground and a picture in mind of the implementation after only 2 hours (very efficient communication!)
  
• having a working backend which we used for the first time in our lives
  
• having a user friendly GUI built from scratch
• being able to easily fill our database with ingredients and recipes from Chefkoch
  
• interdisciplinary help; positive vibes (trying to help each other even without knowledge of the others programming language)

What we learned

• a little fullstack experience on beginner level
  
• working in a diverse team (different skillsets came together and tried to create a solution)

What's next for EfficientEats

• Community/social feature by sharing ingredients and recipes
• Provide suggestion for shopping behaviour, analyse eating habits, e.g. regional suggestions, diet recommendations
  
• Collaborations with Discounters and Too Good to Go
• Plan out whole weeks of eating
• Google lense implementation (scanning supermarket bill -> user doesn't need to enter values manually)

Built With

• back4app
• python
• swiftui