Pantry Pic
Take a photo. Get recipes from your ingredients.
Our own app. Pantry Pic detects what’s in your fridge or pantry, suggests meals you can cook tonight and keeps the grocery list under control.
- Ingredients recognised
- 120K+
- Personalised recipes served
- 35K+
- App Store rating in Australia
- 4.6★
- From first line of code to the App Store
- 4 months
The problem
People open the fridge, see a shelf of ingredients and still order takeaway. Deciding what to cook is the hard part, and good food gets thrown out.
The idea
One photo. Pantry Pic reads the shelves, works out what you have and suggests meals you can cook tonight. Everything else, from meal plans to the shopping list, builds on that one step.
What we built
A React Native app for iOS and Android with AI ingredient detection from a single photo. Recipes ranked by what’s on hand, a weekly planner, a shopping list that fills itself, receipt scanning and in-app subscriptions.
Behind it sits an AWS backend with a GraphQL API. In front of it, a Next.js marketing site in 9 languages with a Sanity-powered blog.
Timeline
Work started in May 2025. The first version was live on the App Store and Google Play in September 2025, about four months later.
We’ve shipped steadily since. Version 3, in October 2026, added a redesign for the latest iOS, Live Activities and receipt scanning.
How the AI works
A photo goes to a vision model that lists the ingredients it can see. Pantry Pic then ranks recipes by how much of each one you already have.
We use models from Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. Each task goes to a model that fits it, with a fallback if a provider is slow or down. Fast, cheap models do the high-volume work, so the cost per scan stays low as usage grows.
Why it matters for your project
We run Pantry Pic as a business. What we learn about onboarding, subscriptions, store reviews and AI costs goes straight into client work.
Real screens from the live app.
Building something like Pantry Pic?
How much does it cost to build an app in Australia?
$25k – $100k+ typical build cost, aud ex gst
Read the guide →App like Pantry PicRecipe app development cost: what an app like Pantry Pic costs
4 months pantry pic, first commit to both stores
Read the guide →Cost guideHow much does it cost to build an AI app in Australia?
$15k – $40k one ai feature in an existing app
Read the guide →Timeline guideHow long does it take to build an app?
1 – 2 months simple app or mvp
Read the guide →Cost guideHow much does it cost to maintain an app?
15 – 20% of the build cost, each year
Read the guide →Want an app like Pantry Pic?
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