ChopChop

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  Recipes

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  Shopping Lists

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  Inventory

🧠 Inspiration

ChopChop was inspired by the daily hassle of managing cooking at home—a challenge we faced personally and repeatedly. From deciding what to cook, figuring out what ingredients were needed, making shopping lists, estimating prices, and keeping track of what we had at home—every step felt disconnected and unnecessarily time-consuming.

We knew there had to be a better way—one that respected our time, adapted to our habits, and simplified the entire experience of planning meals and shopping for ingredients. ChopChop was born to solve exactly that.

🍽️ What it does

ChopChop is a household cooking management app that brings together everything you need to plan meals, manage inventory, and shop smarter—all in one seamless experience.

• Recipe Management: Paste any recipe, and our AI extracts ingredients and quantities. Add tags, servings, and notes.
• Weekly Scheduling: Add recipes into a calendar, and ChopChop automatically detects which ingredients you're missing.
• Smart Shopping Lists: Missing items are instantly added to your shopping lists, organized by store.
• Receipt Automation: Upload old receipts to automatically generate shopping lists based on real spending and ingredient patterns.
• Cost Estimation: Lists include average prices from past purchases so you know what you’ll likely spend.
• Habit-based Suggestions: Frequently bought ingredients from the same store appear as optional adds.

🛠️ How we built it

• Frontend: Built using React, styled with Tailwind CSS and react-lucid UI for clean, responsive design.
• Backend & Auth: Powered by Supabase for data storage, user authentication, and Edges.
• AI Integration: We used Gemini API to extract structured data (ingredients and quantities) from pasted recipes and uploaded receipts.
• Receipt Processing: Developed a custom parser that reads uploaded receipts (text or image-based), normalizes data, and links it to relevant shopping lists (Gemini-based).

⚠️ Challenges we ran into

• Time constraints: We registered 3 weeks into the hackathon.
• Receipt Parsing: Standardizing data from different formats and inconsistent terminology (e.g., “bell pepper” vs. “capsicum”) was a challenge.
• Ingredient Deduplication: Making sure “1 tomato” and “3 tomatoes” from different recipes weren’t double-counted without losing context.
• UX Flow: Designing a simple experience that hides complex logic (like syncing receipts, recipes, and store-specific lists) took thoughtful iteration.
• Price Tracking: Averaging prices from historical data without requiring manual input was a delicate balance between accuracy and ease-of-use.

🏆 Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Created a fully working prototype in a short time frame with real AI-powered automation.
• Built an end-to-end cooking workflow—from recipe input to shopping checkout—in one unified experience.
• Developed an intuitive interface that even non-tech-savvy users can navigate with ease.
• Automated one of the most painful tasks in cooking: tracking what to buy and how much it will cost.
• And most important: We already use the app ourselves! 😊

📚 What we learned

• AI works best when it enhances habits, not when it replaces them.
• Users appreciate tools that think like they do, especially when dealing with familiar routines like cooking.
• Building across multiple flows (recipes, schedules, shopping) requires strong data relationships and clarity in user journeys.
• Simplicity in UX is a form of intelligence—it’s just as important as the AI itself.

🚀 What's next for ChopChop

We’re excited about the future of ChopChop and have several features in the pipeline:

• Nutrition tracking and health-based recipe filtering
• Inventory management with auto-suggestions based on expiry dates and what's already in the fridge
• Collaborative planning for families or housemates
• Mobile app version for shopping on the go

Our goal is to become the go-to smart kitchen companion—saving people time, money, and mental load, every day.

Built With

• gemini
• react
• supabase