PantryIQ

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Inspiration

In South Africa, the rising cost of living and food inflation has become a serious challenge, especially for university students. Many students struggle to afford basic groceries while trying to balance tuition, rent, transport, and other expenses.

We saw classmates skipping meals, buying the cheapest food possible, or constantly worrying about whether their budget would last until the end of the month.

This inspired us to build PantryIQ — a system designed to help students stretch their grocery budget and make smarter purchasing decisions. We wanted to create a tool that could empower students to eat better, save money, and reduce financial stress.

What it does

PantryIQ is an AI-powered budgeting assistant that helps students find affordable groceries based on their budget.

The system allows users to enter their grocery budget and desired food items, and PantryIQ analyzes online grocery prices to recommend the most affordable options available.

It helps users:

Find the cheapest grocery options

Compare prices across stores

Generate budget-friendly shopping lists

Make smarter food purchasing decisions

The goal is simple: help students eat well without breaking their budget.

How we built it

PantryIQ combines artificial intelligence and real-time data to assist users in making smarter grocery decisions.

The system was built using:

Web scraping to collect grocery price data from online stores

AI models to analyze grocery prices and recommend affordable options based on a user’s budget

A backend system that processes pricing data and generates optimized recommendations

A simple user interface where students can enter their grocery budget and receive smart suggestions

To accelerate development and research, we also leveraged several advanced AI tools including ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, Gemini, and Cursor AI to assist with problem-solving, rapid prototyping, and improving our system architecture.

By combining AI-powered analysis with real-world grocery pricing data, PantryIQ helps students discover the most cost-effective food choices available within their budget.

Challenges we ran into

Building PantryIQ came with several challenges:

Collecting and organizing reliable grocery pricing data

Ensuring the AI recommendations were accurate and useful

Handling different store pricing structures

Designing a system that was simple enough for students to use quickly

Another challenge was ensuring that the system could adapt to constantly changing food prices, especially during periods of inflation.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that PantryIQ:

Addresses a real problem affecting students in South Africa

Combines AI with real-world financial challenges

Demonstrates how technology can be used for social impact

Provides a tool that could genuinely help students save money and reduce stress

Seeing the idea come together into a working system that could make a difference is something we are truly proud of.

What we learned

Through this project we learned:

How AI can be applied to real-world economic problems

The importance of data collection and processing

How to integrate web scraping with AI-driven decision systems

The value of building technology that focuses on people and real societal challenges

Most importantly, we learned that technology should not only be innovative — it should also be meaningful and impactful.

What's next for PantryIQ

Our vision for PantryIQ goes beyond a hackathon project.

Next, we plan to:

Integrate real-time grocery store APIs

Add price prediction using machine learning

Build a mobile application for students

Expand the platform to support more stores across South Africa

Introduce smart pantry tracking and meal planning

Our long-term goal is to turn PantryIQ into a platform that helps millions of people make smarter, more affordable food choices.

Because in a world where prices keep rising, everyone deserves access to affordable food.

Built With

• antigravity
• chatgpt
• model
• react