FridgeStare

Because 6pm comes every single day.

⬇ Download from GitHub

Just shopped, fridge is full, still staring at 6pm with no plan. FridgeStare knows you have three kinds of mustard and can still help with dinner.

There are a hundred of these apps. I built my own because I wanted exactly what I wanted — scan a UPC as you unpack groceries, tag it as a protein, side, or dessert, and when dinner comes around the planner gives you options based on what's actually in your kitchen. Because we've all stood in front of the fridge at 6pm, staring, with absolutely no plan, even though you just went shopping.

No accounts, no huge dependencies, no bloat. A personal project I decided to make nice and neat.

The scanning system is solid enough that I'm pulling it out for other projects. The rest is just a thing that works for my house. YMMV.

A lightweight, self-contained grocery inventory and meal planning app. Scan UPC barcodes with your phone camera, look up product info, track your stock, and get randomized meal suggestions from what you have on hand.

Design Philosophy

Everything in this app is intentionally simple — sometimes to the point where it might look like a corner was cut. To the contrary...

• PINs are 4–8 digits, no email, no passwords. That's the point. You type 4 numbers and you're in. The only real threat is brute-force, which Turnstile and rate limiting handle.
• No permissions, no roles, no admin accounts. Every user is the same. The ledger tracks who did what, but nobody has special powers.
• No undo, no confirmation dialogs for adds/takes. ADD adds one, TAKE removes one.
• Manual entries create internal barcodes, not names.
• Weak PINs like 1234 are rejected, but usable ones remain simple. The goal isn't bank-grade security, it's keeping the neighbor's kid from messing with your inventory.
• Users can change anyone's PIN. Again — no roles. If you're logged in, you can manage users. It's a family tool, not an enterprise.

The rule: if making it more complex doesn't make it noticeably better for a family kitchen, it stays simple.

Features

• Barcode scanning — Snap a photo of any UPC barcode; client-side decoding
• Product lookup — Auto-fetches name and brand info
• Manual entry — Add items without barcodes
• Inventory management — Live +/- tracking
• Meal planning — Randomized meal suggestions
• Multi-user — PIN login
• Audit ledger — Tracks all actions
• Configurable — Settings for timeouts, API, etc.
• Mobile-first — Optimized UI

Requirements

• PHP 8.2+ with php-sqlite3 and php-zip extensions
• Apache with mod_rewrite

Deployment

Option 1: Manual

# Upload files
scp -r . user@host:/var/www/fridgestare/

# Configure
cp config.example.php config.php

Option 2: Docker

docker-compose up -d

Configuration

Copy config.example.php to config.php and edit.

First Run

1. Log in with Default user / PIN 1234
2. Create your own user
3. Delete default user

Tech Stack

• PHP
• ZBar WASM
• Open Food Facts API
• Cloudflare Turnstile

License

MIT

Who makes this?!

Me, Garrett Wiedmeier. You can find my company at gmwsys.com or my persaonal website at gmwnet.com

© 2026 Garrett Wiedmeier