Pantry

Planning meals & reducing food waste

Pantry is an ongoing personal project I am designing and building in public. It's an app designed to help users reduce food waste and save money by creating shopping lists linked to inventory, and by tracking the expiry and stock of food at home.

Role

Creator

Company

Personal

Background

Using produce and other ingredients in your home before they expire can feel like a race against the clock.

The idea for Pantry started when I wished I could receive notifications for food that was expiring, and have recipes suggested to me with ingredients I had at home.

After the seed was planted, and the idea grew, I searched the app store and beyond for similar apps and found a lot, but I was not discouraged. Though my idea was not novel, my mission became to create the best-designed app that would make these tasks as easy as possible, and a joy to use.

Research

The fact that Pantry wouldn't be the first of its kind had its benefits — I could analyze existing apps and read reviews to find out where they fell short for some users. And so, I did just that. These learnings were useful when crafting the design principles and throughout the design process.

Key takeaways

Item categories that can be created and modified
Manageable Common Items and Saved Items
Items that include tags and an expiry date
Shopping lists that can be manually re-ordered
Functionality to print lists
Customizable Inventory lists

Research

Brand Identity

The brand aesthetic is inspired by modern kitchens. The wordmark includes the symbol which replaces the "a", but can also stand alone. Its shape emulates the curves found in the typeface, as well as the fun personality exuded by it.

Product Design

I crafted a set of design principles at the beginning of the design process to guide my thinking.

Agility before detail
Enable users to accomplish tasks with the minimum amount input possible, and lean into simplicity.

Meet users where they are
The app should be configurable from a simple grocery list up to a fully-featured recipe app complete with inventory management.

No wasted time or effort
Use the data users' input to the maximum effect, and make it highly re-usable.

Plan

Plan meals and cooking steps with clarity around the ingredients you have at home and when they will expire.

Keep track of food at home

Inventory is designed to manage what's at home, so you never make duplicate purchases again. It also enables you to plan meals with recipes centred around the ingredients you already have that are sorted by the expiring date by default. Items can be given a Restock Priority which will surface those items in the Shopping list.

Enabling users to quickly add items

When adding food to your Inventory or Shopping list, suggestions show previously added items followed by items from the Common Items database, and the current stock of items. Expiration Dates, Reminders, and Tags can be set for items that will be remembered next time they are added. Once an item is added, details can be viewed by tapping an item. When the feature is turned on, the quantity or stock of items can be updated, including whether an item was used or discarded to track progress towards the goal of reducing food waste.

Add Items to Inventory screens (Default, Typing, and Added states).

Food Item field selection screens (Expiring Date, Reminders, Tags).

Item Details (Inventory) screen - Medium and Large Detents.

Update stock screen (Used, Discarded, and Correction varients).

Optimizing shopping lists for groceries

Shopping lists are sorted by item category by default that can be re-ordered. Adding items to shopping lists utilizes the same modal design pattern as with Inventory, allowing for quick and familiar list creation. As items are checked-off, they are moved into a "In Bag" section that appears at the bottom of the list where items can then be added to Inventory.