A platform helping women's shelters efficiently track and manage their food inventory — identifying items nearing expiration and turning them into nutritious, thoughtful recipes.

devpost link: https://devpost.com/software/bloom-pantry

Bloom Pantry bridges the gap between food waste and food security. Shelter staff scan food items with a mobile app; Gemini AI identifies each item and reads expiration dates. The web dashboard surfaces the top items about to expire and auto-generates recipes, including period-friendly meal adaptations, so nothing goes to waste.

• Smart scanning — Snap a photo; Gemini + OCR identify the item and read the expiration date automatically.
• Expiry dashboard — Web view highlights the top 5 items nearest expiration so staff can act fast.
• Recipe generator — Auto-generates recipes from expiring ingredients, with period-friendly alternatives for each dish.
• Cloud-synced — App and website stay in sync via AWS DynamoDB — inventory updates reflected in real time supporting multiple devices simultaneously.

Languages & Frameworks React · React Native · TypeScript · JavaScript · CSS · Expo Go

AI & APIs Gemini API · Claude / Codex · ChatGPT · OCR

Infrastructure AWS · DynamoDB

• Setting up and connecting AWS DynamoDB under a tight hackathon deadline.
• Integrating the Gemini API into a React Native app and debugging authentication issues in real time.
• Using OCR to extract machine-readable expiration dates from food packaging photos.
• Keeping a mobile app and web dashboard in sync via a shared cloud database.

• Expand recipe variety to cover more combinations of expiring ingredients.
• Improve expiration-date OCR accuracy for a wider range of label formats.
• Add push notifications when critical items are about to expire.
• Scale to other shelter types beyond women's shelters.

Built with care at YouCode 2026 thanks to UBC Wics & Wids · Bloom Pantry · Amelie, Nina, Selina F, and Selina J