DigiFridge | Devpost

Inspiration

We’ve all experienced that Friday evening disappointment: opening the fridge after a long week only to find ingredients we paid for heading straight for the bin. It’s a relatable moment with a staggering cost. In the UK alone, households discard £17 billion worth of food annually, with nearly 40% of that waste caused simply by forgotten expiration dates. We built DigiFridge to turn that 'forgotten' food into a thing of the past, giving users total clarity on what they own before it’s too late.

What it does

Our solution begins the moment you leave the store. With a single AI-powered receipt scan, our system uses computer vision to instantly digitise your groceries into a live inventory. By cross-referencing product data, we automatically estimate expiration windows for every perishable item. But we don't just track data; we act on it. Our recommendation engine suggests custom recipes that prioritize your 'at-risk' ingredients, ensuring the food you bought actually makes it to your plate, not the bin.

How we built it

We used Android Studio for the app development. Although we were all comfortable with Java, we decided to tackle learning Kotlin due to it's conciseness as a language, and to learn a new skill as well! We also used the OpenRouter API for the recipe-generating AI model.

Challenges we ran into

Integrating the AI backend and properly engineering prompts for consistent output was tricky. We contemplated using FastAPI at the start, but then we decided that a native Kotlin backend with RetroFit was more suitable. This was our first time designing a UX, which we also found challenging to do given how bland Android's templates can look.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our biggest accomplishment was solving the 'friction' problem. Most people quit tracking food waste because it takes too much effort. We built a solution where a single photo is the only thing standing between a cluttered fridge and a masterfully organized kitchen. We’ve achieved a level of parsing consistency and UX intuition that allows a user to go from a paper receipt to a waste-reducing recipe in seconds, making sustainable living a seamless part of their routine.

What we learned

We learned how to use Android Studio for android app development. We also learned how to collaborate in a group using version control.

What's next for DigiFridge

The future of DigiFridge lies beyond the smartphone. We are developing a roadmap to transition our core computer vision technology into an embedded IoT module. Imagine a smart fridge that doesn't just show you what’s inside, but actively manages your household's carbon footprint. By embedding our logic directly into the appliance, we can provide real-time shelf-life updates and recipe prompts via the fridge door, making sustainable living a standard feature of the modern home.