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Apply HN: Don't wast your food, get it tracked

4 points by trtobe ↗ HN
1. Scan the food you buy before storing it.

2. Get notified when an item is going to expire.

3. (if the idea gets traction) add a feature to suggest a recipe related to what you got at home.

Food saved, money saved, better environment.

7 comments

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rkho
Whenever I return from grocery shopping, my first instinct is to throw it all in the fridge as fast as possible so I can continue with whatever it was I was doing before I left.

However, I am very guilty of buying too many fruits and salad mixes and letting them expire before eating them.

If I were to get into the habit of actually scanning everything I buy before storing it, how would this work? Would I scan a UPC? Would some sort of image recognition tell what I scanned and assign it an arbitrary expiration date?

I like the idea, but I'm wary of spending time scanning everything.

trtobe
I agree spending hour(s) scanning or tapping is not the solution. Be fair we will be lazy to do so.

First I wanted to know if the idea got traction before investing time on it.

I was thinking about image recognition but still we have to spend time to store all the data.

I was more thinking approaching providers/supermarket to add this information on the receipt so you have just to scan it to get all needed information but this doable is worth to ask.

afrancis
I have thought about this problem and like your goals. Like @rkho stated, re-scanning is a pain. Perhaps if you could somehow get buy-in with the grocery store: the store sends an electronic copy of the bill that can be processed; have a program read the bill.
trtobe
Yes having to scan you bill/receipt is the approach I am thinking of but how are providers/supermarkets willing to give this data? or I have to find away to get these information somehow.

As I wrote in another comment, I would like to know how many are interested on this idea to see if the journey is worth to take.

afrancis
@trtobe: you could ask the supermarkets. Doesn't hurt. Perhaps you would have better luck promoting this idea with grocery stores that have loyalty cards? Loyalty cards I suppose are already used to track specific users and what they purchase. I think working with the supermarkets are better because it results in a more frictionless experience.
afrancis
I have been thinking about this one a bit more. I believe the idea is to remove various sources of friction in the system. You may be able to get away with not scanning. Again, pretend the store has a system to send you the grocery bill in a processable electronic form. The assumption is most stuff is purchased from a large supermarket. Typically stuff like lot numbers, expiry, best before are know so those could be included. This information could be included into something like Google Calendar and reminders set out. Imagine someone has Amazon Alexa (was "listening to Too Embarrassed to Ask" podcast about Alexa). It would ask questions about the food: "you bought Arugula two days ago? Have you used it yet?" Privacy aside, this may be much more usable.
trtobe
I do like the way you are looking at the problem, but as high overview it's all down to supermarket to provide this information (if they got it and easy to share).

I was hoping to find kinda open data date for grocery food but still looking for.

Hope get more people interested on the idea so it gives me a push to explore more paths to solve the problem.