FoodShiner: Pantry Companion

I’ve been looking for an app to keep an inventory of all my food stuffs. I’ve tried a couple of other apps, but this one is perfect for my needs.

I started looking for a freezer app because I purchased some food labels which had a dedicated QR code; the label supplier had an app but is pretty dreadful. I then searched for an alternative and after several downloads and deletions I finally found FoodShiner - and it is free as I write this review. It does it all or certainly all I need. I can now use either my QR Code labels or the product Bar Codes. So a donation went off to the owner of the app to show my appreciation.

Would give it 10 stars if I could. 😀 function rich with ability to inventory your food in whatever location it is in the house, set status to show an item is open (and how much used if useful) and whether you’ve ending up throwing it away or eating it, set an alert to flag when it’s going out of date (including adjusting date if opening affects life), and push to a shopping list either automatically or manually. Then use the list to check off when bought and move that item to storage. And easy to share with the other half so we both manage it (although it would be great to do a share of all storages/shopping lists in one go rather than share each storage location/list individually). It takes effort to set up (depending on how much food you have) but so worth it. For the first time I was able to check in real time at the supermarket if I had an item already and therefore avoid buying it unnecessarily Plus it’s free, but well worth the ‘tip’ that I paid to them to acknowledge how happy I am with this app. Bravo to the developers and thank you so much for allowing me to get so organised 😂😂

Finally an app that offers desired functionality with no subscription, and it's decently customisable.

Thank you so much. Only downloaded yesterday so am still getting to grips with it. Wanted a database to help prevent forgotten items lurking in a garage chest freezer and wasted. Looked at a few ‘recommended’ apps, but they all seemed to want to gather/sell on data and have links to 3rd parties/tracking across all media. A definite no from me. Then I came across this one. Wow. A breath of fresh air. No tracking, hopefully simple to use and no ‘bells and whistles’. So thank you so much. Seems just what I need. Have only added a few items so far as I want to understand the process before letting loose. But, cautiously, looks brilliant, and if it saves wasted food then should be adopted by everyone.

I don’t want to be bothered with expirations, so I turned ‘require expiration dates’ off. Used to be fine. Now it doesn’t bother me, it justs enters it as today’s date and then always displays an annoying red date. Not what I want, not what I expect. Reported to support quite some time ago, still no response.

I wanted a simple food inventory app that let me add, categorise and easily edit a list of all the food in my house so I can stop wasting so much food. I don’t need a meal planner or to track my eating for health reasons or anything like that, I just want to stop wasting food. A way to manage expiry dates is a plus. I’ve only just started using this app, but so far it’s perfect. I haven’t found any bugs, and I contacted the developer with a query and got a really helpful reply within 24 hours. I don’t do things by halves, so when I decided I wanted an app, I downloaded about 10 apps to test them out and this is the one that worked the best for me. Unless something goes weirdly wrong when I start using it more (in which case I’ll update this review, so if it’s not updated, it means it still works well!) then I highly recommend it. Best of all, no identity tracking! Some of the things I liked in this app that I didn’t find (all of them) in any other app: - simple, uncluttered interface - ability to reuse the same product for different locations (e.g have a jar of pesto in the fridge and another in the cupboard) without the app getting confused - have multiple items under the same category with different expiry dates attached to each, but they are grouped (e.g. 2 blocks of butter, one expires in a month, the other in 2 months) - unlimited use of app for free with no subscription (though donations are possible) - no ads, no annoying pop ups or “helpful hints” that get in the way - change the way the data is displayed with one click to storage location, expiry date, food category etc, some other apps made this complicated to do - no data tracking / identity tracking

As useful as this app is, it still doesn’t sync properly between the devices after the latest update. For instance, the item that was consumed on the iPhone still shows on the iPad and on the Mac even though the status shows as synced. The last update seems to fix the sync issue. Thank you.

Help me from buying to much and using what I got, so now I don’t end up wasting food. Plus side it free and is better than other paid ones, yes you can tip and will be in the near future. Only small complaint there no “Use by date” so have to use “Expiration date” which the app has, not idea but not a deal breaker and no star off because of it.

Fantastic app. Best of its kind. Scanner works (UK) and if item isn’t recognised it’s easy to add to the database for everyone. Well organised, love the ability to also print the list of items in the pantry. Brilliant.