Frigo

Frigo is a kitchen companion app designed to reduce food waste and the daily stress of deciding what to cook. It recognises ingredients with your phone camera, matches recipes to what you already have, tracks nutrition, and builds smart shopping lists. The site frames the problem with figures such as households losing around $1,500 a year to wasted food and spending 45 minutes a day deciding what to eat.

How it works

There are three steps. First, snap your fridge: point the camera at your ingredients and Frigo identifies them, with the company stating 95 percent accuracy. Second, pick a recipe from matching options based on what you have, drawn from a database of more than 10,000 verified recipes. Third, plan your meals for the week and auto-generate a shopping list that separates what you already have from what you need to buy.

Features

Smart shopping lists are created automatically and can be edited. A digital cookbook lets you import recipes instantly by snapping a photo of a page in a physical cookbook, and recipes can be imported from websites too. Pantry tracking keeps a record of ingredients so items at the back of the fridge are not forgotten. Nutrition tracking shows what you are eating. Cooking mode keeps instructions and timers in one place, so you do not have to switch between several devices or apps while cooking.

Pricing

You can get started with Frigo for free. Check the app store listing for any paid options and current prices.

Who it suits

Frigo suits busy households, families planning weekly meals, students on a budget and anyone who wants to waste less food and spend less on groceries.

Things to consider

Ingredient recognition can make mistakes, so check the detected list before relying on recipe matches. Savings depend on actually using up what you buy. Nutrition figures are estimates, so people with medical diets or allergies should check labels and recipes carefully. A good habit is to scan the fridge before shopping, so the list only includes what you truly need.

Importing a few family favourites into the digital cookbook first helps the app suggest meals your household already enjoys.