StayFresh

Every year millions of pounds of food are wasted across stores and shelters. Our app allows users to scan expiration date labels and receive notifications near expiration to help prevent this waste.

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Inspiration

We have all spent time working in homeless shelters and through this experience have seen first-hand how much valuable food can be wasted due to expiration. We hope to reduce the frequency of this issue by helping shelters, stores, and people manage their food seamlessly through our mobile application.

What it does

Our app allows users to scan the expiration dates of their packaged foods or enter the expiration date for non packaged foods. Then, the app lists foods based on how soon they will expire and notifies users of foods expiring soon. Users can then make sure to finish the food or donate it to somewhere it can be used in time.

How we built it

We used Android Studio to build the base of the application in Java and the Google Cloud Vision API to detect text in images.

Challenges we ran into

We learned Android Studio on the spot, which was a challenging feat in terms of adaptability. Also, using the Google Cloud Vision API was a new realm for us to explore but also an exciting challenge.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of what we were able to accomplish in terms of building the base of the app, and using the Google Cloud Vision API for our custom use.

What we learned

We learned a lot about collaboration and team programming along with hacking for social and community good.

What's next for StayFresh

We hope to improve our app by implementing live camera usage instead of our current file based image approach. We would also like to expand our set of features by adding a recipe function to recommend recipes based off of soon to expire foods along with a donation button to directly donate expiring foods to a local shelter.

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