FreshKeep

Inspiration

Food waste is a massive global problem — nearly one-third of all food produced is wasted every year. We've all forgotten about groceries in the back of the fridge until they've gone bad. FreshKeep was inspired by the simple idea of giving people a smart, easy way to track what's in their pantry and use it before it expires.

What it does

FreshKeep is a smart food expiry tracker that helps users manage their pantry efficiently. It lets users add food items with expiry dates, get visual alerts for items expiring soon or already expired, discover recipe suggestions based on what they currently have, donate expiring food to local NGOs, view pantry statistics, and chat with an AI assistant for personalized food advice and recipe ideas.

How we built it

We built FreshKeep using plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the frontend with a clean, responsive UI. The backend is a Node.js + Express server that connects to the Groq AI API using the LLaMA model for the AI chat feature. We used localStorage to persist pantry data and dotenv to manage API keys securely.

Challenges we ran into

Managing API keys securely without exposing them in the frontend code
GitHub push protection blocking commits containing API secrets
Switching between multiple AI providers (Anthropic, Gemini, Groq) due to quota and billing issues
Setting up the backend server to properly forward requests to the AI API
Keeping the chat history context working correctly across messages

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Built a fully functional pantry management system from scratch
Successfully integrated a free AI assistant that understands the user's actual pantry contents
Created a donate feature connecting users with local NGOs to reduce food waste
Designed a clean, beautiful UI with smooth animations and a great user experience
Solved complex Git history issues to safely push code to GitHub