People often forget what’s inside their fridge or pantry, leading to wasted food and overspending. In our research, we found that most users kept mental notes or messy lists, often buying duplicates or throwing away expired ingredients.

“I buy groceries, but I forget what I already have.”
“I end up wasting food because I don’t track expiration dates.”

TrackFood was designed to solve this — to help users see what they own, know what’s expiring soon, and use it creatively.

84% of users we interviewed couldn’t remember what was in their fridge — leading to wasted food and money.

Through interviews and surveys, we identified key user behaviors:

• 80% forget ingredients after a few days

• 60% don’t know how to use leftovers

• 90% want a way to automatically track their groceries

These insights became the foundation for our design direction — automation, visibility, and motivation

We found three core patterns behind food waste: forgetfulness, overbuying, and lack of visibility.

• Visibility

• Automation

• Motivation

Turning insights into action: visibility, automation, and motivation.

Help users clearly see what's available and what's expiring.

Reduce manual effort through receipt scanning.

Encourage action through reminders and recipe suggestions.

Key Words

Refining grocery scanning through iteration and user feedback

Through several design iterations, we refined TrackFood’s core experience around effortless grocery input. Our early prototypes explored different interaction models — from manual entry to OCR-based receipt scanning — each revealing friction points that informed the next version. The final hybrid approach, combining auto-recognition with simple manual edits, achieved a 90% success rate during usability testing. Users described it as “intuitive and natural, like taking a quick photo of my shopping list.”

• Inventory Dashboard

• Expiration Alerts

• Smart Scan

• AI Recipe Generator 

From cluttered fridges to calm visibility — TrackFood helps users see everything they have in one glance.

Displays food inventory in categories (Expiring Soon, Recently Added, History)

Simple reminders to use food before it spoils.

Automatically adds purchased items with expiration estimates.

Suggests meals using available ingredients.

Key Features

Inventory Dashboard & Expiration Alerts

The dashboard organizes items into Expiring Soon, Recently Added, and History—highlighting urgency instead of location. Subtle color cues and reminders guide users to use items in time, turning awareness into simple, everyday action.

Smart Scan

Smart Scan lets users capture grocery items instantly using receipt or barcode scanning. With OCR technology, the app reads item names and predicts expiration dates automatically. Users can review or edit details before saving, making the process fast, accurate, and effortless.

AI Recipe Generator

The AI Recipe Generator suggests meals using ingredients already on hand. With one tap, users can generate custom recipes that reduce waste and make cooking more creative and sustainable.