A stock you have to type in by hand is a stock you give up on after a week. Mealventory offers three ways to add your shopping, from the fastest to the most precise.
1. A photo of the receipt
It’s the fastest when you get back from shopping.
- In Stock, open adding by receipt.
- Take a photo of your receipt, flat and well lit.
- Brigitte reads the lines and suggests the list of recognised products.
- Check it, fix what’s wrong, untick what you don’t want to keep, then confirm.
A receipt sometimes abbreviates names. If a product is misrecognised, you can link it to the right food: Mealventory remembers it for next time.
Receipt scanning is limited each month, depending on your plan.
2. The barcode
Ideal for one product at a time, or when you didn’t keep the receipt.
- In Stock, choose to scan.
- Aim the camera at the barcode. If the camera won’t cooperate, you can type the number by hand.
- Mealventory finds the product (name, brand) and lets you choose where to put it and its date.
Product records come from Open Food Facts, a collaborative database. A very recent or very local product may be missing: add it by hand then.
3. Manual entry
For a food without a barcode (a market vegetable, a leftover, a cooked dish): type its name. Mealventory suggests the matching food from the catalogue, with a default shelf life.
Check the date
Whatever the method, the suggested date is an estimate. If the packaging has a date, that’s the one that counts: replace the suggested date. See also Use by or best before: what’s the difference?.
What next?
Once the stock is filled, Mealventory shows what needs using first, and Brigitte can suggest recipes with what you already have.