Anti-Gaspi — A Mobile-First Solution Against Food Waste

It all started one evening in front of my fridge, staring at a yogurt that had been expired for a week without me noticing. That kind of small frustration, repeated week after week, eventually gets to you. And when something gets to me, I tend to want to fix it.

I wanted something simple: scan a product, log its expiration date, get an alert before it's too late. Nothing more.

The concept is straightforward. You scan a product's barcode with your phone camera. The app automatically identifies the product through a global food database (Open Food Facts), displaying its photo and name. All that's left is to enter the expiration date.

One detail I put particular care into: product names from databases are often raw and hard to read — technical references, abbreviations. I integrated an AI layer (via the OpenRouter API) that rewrites these names into something natural and easy to understand, seamlessly and transparently for the user.

Once products are saved, the list displays an intuitive color code: fresh items, products to consume soon, and expired ones. No need to read dates — a glance is enough.

The app is built on modern, battle-tested technologies: Next.js for both frontend and backend, TypeScript for code reliability, and a lightweight local database that requires no dedicated server.

The whole thing is containerized with Docker for simple, self-hosted deployment within my homelab.

What drove these choices was above all pragmatism: a consistent stack, a single codebase, straightforward deployment. No over-engineering for a personal, self-hosted project — but solid, maintainable foundations.

And what about alerts? That's where the home automation integration comes in.

The app exposes a REST API that lets other services access the database. Home Assistant uses it to trigger alerts for upcoming expirations — notifying me directly via my Telegram chatbot. And my e-ink dashboard permanently displays products expiring within the next 3 days.

The result: a smart, visual alert system seamlessly woven into daily life, with zero friction.