Kepta: Kitchen Inventory

Inspiration

The biggest triggers were always the bagels and breads we would buy, along with the fruits consisting of apples, bananas, oranges, and avocados. My family would buy 3-4 packages of bagels and two loaves of bread at a time, and at least two of the bagel bags would go bad and get thrown away, week after week. Same with the bread. We'd eat most of each loaf until the last couple of slices that never get eaten, and then they'd sit in the back for 2-3 months rotting away while watching new bags get purchased and eaten right in front of them. At one point we had like 4 bags of moldy bread, months old, sitting in the pantry, and the same with the bagels. The other day we threw away two packs of super rotten potatoes, and it's like that for more items too. We toss out pounds of different cheeses each week: fresh mozzarella, shredded cheese, sliced cheese that gets down to a slice or two, plus old sauces, dressings, pasta sauces, milk and creams. We're always wasting so much food it's ridiculous, and there needed to be some type of change.

The way my parents shop is by buying the deals (buy one get one free, buy 3 get one, or discounted items that are old on their shelf life etc.) and even those don't get eaten. A lot in the fruit bowl goes bad too because we buy so much fruit at once, probably discounted, and we'll throw a quarter or half away. We spend a lot at the grocery store, which isn't necessarily bad if we're going to eat all of it, but my family loves to go out to eat as well, so why are we buying so many extra items? Just because something is on sale doesn't mean we need to purchase everything.

I notice the waste most because I don't like eating older food, and my mom probably notices next, but that doesn't change the spending habits, so clearly noticing isn't enough. I personally feel annoyed throwing out food because I hate wasting money, even if I'm not the one who bought it. It's funny, sometimes at a restaurant, or at my house or friends' houses when they're about to throw something away, I'll either try to eat it while I'm there or literally take their meal home. What makes that insane is that I consider myself a germaphobe. I guess wasting money hurts me more than germs, apparently.

For years it was the classic handwritten grocery list stuck on the fridge, and recently we switched to a shared online notes app where our family can add things that get categorized. But it doesn't track anything at all. If things don't get marked off, we end up buying items on repeat or not at all, because we're just guessing. Which makes it kind of useless.

There wasn't a single bad moment that really stood out. It was gradual over months and months of wasting items and nothing getting better. There have been days where my mom cleaned out the kitchen or pantry and countless items, months or years old, got thrown out because they were rotting, plus the smells and the fruit flies. We're not slobs; we keep everything pretty neat and clean the house weekly, but when it comes to food, that's where we go downhill. I think the reason the notes app doesn't work is that either nobody cares or nobody realizes how much is being wasted and how much money we're throwing down the drain.

What it does

So I built Kepta. It's a kitchen app that lets you add grocery items and keep track of what you have and don't have. You can add items straight to your kitchen or your grocery list, see when things are expiring and how much of each item you have left, get dish recipes based on what's in your fridge, and watch how much money you've saved and wasted.

How we built it

I started taking AI seriously back in June earlier this year, and Kepta is actually my second app. My first app is Encue: Where to Watch, which is currently on the App Store. Kepta took about two months from the first prototype to launch, but honestly most of the real work happened in September. I can't write a line of code myself. I describe what I want in plain English, Claude Code writes the actual Swift, a build gets sent to my phone through TestFlight, and I test every single one and decide what ships. I ended up doing over 40 test builds in September alone, and in the final week of the competition, Kepta hit the App Store three separate times. The free app was first, then Kepta Plus powered by RevenueCat, then a full visual refresh. Every feature, every design call, and every rule about how the money math works came from me. The code is all AI's work but everything that actually goes into the app is all me.

The whole paid side of Kepta runs on RevenueCat, and it's honestly the reason Kepta Plus exists at all. I decided to add a paid tier on September 22nd and it was submitted to Apple by the 28th which was six days from nothing to a real subscription business. RevenueCat handles the subscriptions themselves ($2.99 a month, $19.99 a year with a free week, or $29.99 once for the Founding Member lifetime), and I built the entire paywall in their editor, which means I can change it anytime without shipping an app update. It also gave me Customer Center so people can manage or cancel right inside the app, Restore Purchases, and promotional entitlements which is how the judges get free access to Plus. For someone who can't write code, having all of that work was the difference between someday and shipping it in under a week.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge is that I can't write code, so everything depends on how clearly I can describe what I want. Some days that loop was smooth and some days it took three or four builds to get one screen right. The other challenge was time. I came back to this competition with about a week left, so the paid tier, the paywall, and a full visual refresh all had to go through Apple review in the final days, and there was nothing to do but submit clean builds and hope the reviews came back fast. They came back overnight every time, and everything shipped before the deadline.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Honestly, my proudest thing about the app isn't even a feature, it's the simple fact that I don't like to watch food go to waste or be thrown out because I wasn't aware of an expiration date or that I even still had that item available.

What we learned

The biggest thing I learned is that noticing waste isn't enough, because nothing changed at my house until there was something actually tracking it. I also learned how far you can get without writing code if you make every product decision yourself and test every single build on a real phone. The last thing I learned surprised me the most. Just talking about Kepta at home started changing how my family shops before the app even got the chance, so I think the app's real job is making waste impossible to ignore.

What's next for Kepta: Kitchen Inventory

Kepta is just getting started. Receipt scanning is next, so a whole grocery run gets added in seconds instead of typed by hand. After that comes meal photos, meal planning so the app reminds you what you planned to cook and what to grab for it, and family plans, which are already built and waiting in App Store Connect. The one I keep thinking about is having Kepta learn your family's actual pace. If we finish a 12-pack in three days instead of a week, it should tell us to grab two. If the second gallon of milk always goes bad, it should tell us to buy one. The goal is a kitchen that basically runs itself.