Bloom Pantry

Inspiration

Bloom Pantry was inspired by the need of proper organization and inventory storing of food items at shelters, specifically women's shelters in this case.

What it does

Bloom Pantry is a platform that connects to your phone through an app and stores all information into a database where it can also be accessed on through a website. Inside the app, you can scan and take a picture of different food items (apples, cookies, pasta, etc) and with the help of Gemini, the app can identify what the food item is, the best by date (expiration), and then store the item into the platform database. Then on the website it takes these items stored in the database, showcases statistics like the top 5 foods about to expire, and creates food recipes that use up those ingredients as part of the dish to reduce food waste. For each recipe, there's instructions to make the recipe normally and an option to make the recipe when there are women are on their period.

How we built it

Our project can be separated into three sections:

Mobile App (Data Collection) Built using React Native with Expo (Expo Go) for fast cross-platform development Implemented forms and camera integration to capture food items and metadata (name, quantity, expiry date). It is connected to the backend via REST API calls to send data in real time.

Backend & Database (Serverless AWS) Built a serverless backend using AWS Lambda and API Gateway to handle all requests. Food inventory and recipes were stored in Amazon DynamoDB for scalable, low-latency access. Implemented endpoints for:

adding items (POST /items)
retrieving inventory (GET /items)
analytics (GET /analytics)
recipe recommendations (GET /recipes/recommendations) Developed a scoring algorithm to prioritize recipes using ingredients that expire soon

Web Dashboard (Analytics & Insights) Built using React + Vite for a fast, modern frontend. Live data was fetched from backend APIs to display inventory insights and trends.

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges we ran into include trying to integrate Gemini into our app and connecting the information from the app into the database and into our website.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we were able to troubleshoot our app and figure out why GeminiAPI wasn't working. Also, we were able to use our group's unique skill sets to assign tasks to create the best possible project.

What we learned

We learned how to use AWS and use APIGateway to connect to a database all within a strict time frame for this hackathon.

What's next for Bloom Pantry

We want to populate more recipes into the website to account for more variety and use each of the top ingredients about to expire in more ways. Also, add filtering and search features within the dashboard.