Lazat'Rus

the layout of our app
second page of the recipe
future implementation of our homepage

Inspiration

Every day, large amounts of food reach their expiry dates or are close to expiring, and they are immediately thrown away, seen as useless and no longer valuable. However, we began to question this assumption. What if food that is about to be wasted could be given a second chance? This thought sparked the core idea behind our project. Lazat’Rus was created as a way to resurrect food by turning soon-to-expire ingredients into delicious meals.

The name itself combines “Lazarus” and “Lazat,” the Malay word for delicious, symbolising our mission: bringing food back to life and turning what might be wasted into something flavorful and valuable again.

What it does

Allows users to input their almost-expired ingredients along with each item's expiry date, ensuring nothing is forgotten before it goes to waste.
Enables users to filter recipe suggestions based on their dietary preferences, including Halal, Vegan, and Lactose-Free options.
Generates personalised recipe menu cards based on the ingredients listed by the user
Displays an estimated cooking duration for each recipe, helping users plan their meals according to the time they have available.
Shows the number of days remaining before each ingredient expires, giving users a clear urgency indicator so they know exactly what to use first.

How we built it

Built a recipe suggestion web app called Lazat'Rus using Next.js, React and Tailwind CSS
Users enter ingredients they have at home and the app fetches matching recipes live from TheMealDB API
Local Malaysian recipes are prioritised and shown first, with global recipes appearing below
Dietary filters (Halal, Vegan, Vegetarian, Lactose Free) can be combined to narrow down results
Clicking a recipe card navigates to a detail page showing full ingredients and step by step cooking instructions

Challenges we ran into

This being our first hackathon, we had to quickly adapt to working under time pressure while building a functional product from scratch. Managing code collaboration through GitHub version control was a new experience for the team, requiring us to learn branching, merging, and resolving conflicts on the fly. Building the application using Next.js was a challenge as it was an unfamiliar framework for the team, demanding rapid self-learning alongside active development.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Successfully built a working software, Lazat'Rus, that delivers on its core purpose of reducing food waste through smart recipe suggestions.
Maintained clear and effective communication throughout the team, keeping everyone aligned and moving forward despite the time constraints.
Managed to complete our first working prototype within the given hackathon timeframe, proving that the concept is both viable and achievable.
Delivered a clean and functional user interface that is intuitive and visually appealing, making the app easy and enjoyable to use.
Overcame the steep learning curve of Next.js as a team, successfully implementing a framework none of us had worked with before.
Turned a simple idea on saving food from being wasted into a product that people can actually use in their daily lives.

What we learned

We learned that working in a team requires effective communication and clear task delegation to stay on track.
We learned how to organise our project files better, allowing the team to collaborate more efficiently and avoid confusion throughout development.
We learned Next.js, an industry standard framework widely used in modern web development, broadening our technical skills beyond what we knew before.
We learned how to connect and integrate the MealDB API, giving us real-world experience in working with external data sources to power our application.

What's next for Lazat'Rus

homepage that features trending recipes for the month and different categories that users can choose from
reminder to send notifications when your ingredients are expired
users can sign in to save recipes and also publish their own recipe