Fridge Raid

The Problem

People often have ingredients sitting in their fridge but have no idea what to make with them. Cookbooks gather dust on the shelf because cross-referencing available ingredients against hundreds of recipes is tedious and time-consuming. Existing recipe apps approach the problem backwards: they show you a recipe first, then send you shopping for a long list of ingredients you don't have.

The result is wasted food, wasted money, and the nightly frustration of staring into a well-stocked fridge with nothing to cook. There is a clear gap in the market for a tool that flips the traditional recipe search on its head — starting with what you already have and showing you what you can make right now.

Target Audience

• ●Home cooks of all skill levels — from beginners who need guidance to experienced cooks looking for new inspiration with ingredients on hand.
• ●Budget-conscious households — individuals and families who want to reduce food waste and make the most of what they already have before buying more groceries.
• ●Busy professionals and students — people who need quick meal ideas without the overhead of meal-planning from scratch every night.
• ●Recipe collectors — users who clip recipes from magazines, websites, and social media and want a single place to import, organize, and cook from their collection.

Monetization Strategy

Fridge Raid uses a freemium subscription model powered by RevenueCat for subscription management across iOS.

The free tier provides a full-featured cooking companion that drives organic growth and retention, while the premium tier monetizes power users who want AI-powered convenience features. RevenueCat handles subscription lifecycle, receipt validation, and cross-device restoration.

Tech Stack

Architecture

fridge-raid/
├── app/                          # Expo Router screens (tab-based)
│   ├── _layout.tsx               # Root layout, RevenueCat provider
│   ├── index.tsx                 # Home — recipe search & discovery
│   ├── fridge.tsx                # Fridge ingredient management
│   ├── collection.tsx            # Suggested recipes based on fridge
│   ├── cookbook.tsx               # Saved recipes, OCR/URL import
│   └── settings.tsx              # Preferences, unit system, subs
├── components/                   # Reusable UI components
│   ├── RecipeCard.tsx            # Compact recipe preview card
│   ├── RecipeDetailModal.tsx     # Full recipe view
│   ├── RecipeScannerModal.tsx    # Camera/gallery OCR import
│   ├── UrlImportModal.tsx        # URL-based recipe import
│   └── OnboardingModal.tsx       # First-launch walkthrough
├── lib/
│   ├── storage.ts                # AsyncStorage CRUD layer
│   ├── ingredientMatcher.ts      # Fuzzy matching with alt names
│   ├── unitConversion.ts         # Metric/imperial conversion
│   ├── revenueCat.tsx            # RevenueCat context provider
│   ├── ocr/
│   │   ├── recipeFormatter.ts    # LLM prompts for parsing
│   │   ├── recipeParser.ts       # Structured data extraction
│   │   ├── ocrService.ts         # AWS Textract integration
│   │   └── urlFetcher.ts         # Web page fetching
│   └── data/
│       ├── recipes.ts            # 500 hand-refined recipes
│       ├── ingredients.ts        # Ingredient catalog
│       └── unitConversions.ts    # Conversion tables
└── types/
    └── recipe.ts                 # Core type definitions

Data Architecture

Key Design Decisions

• 1.Hybrid Reference Model — User data stores IDs referencing master data, plus user-specific metadata. Single source of truth with personalization overlay.
• 2.Automatic Data Refresh — Master data reloads on every app start to ensure latest content, while preserving all user data.
• 3.Reactive State Management — Direct state updates without full page reloads preserve scroll position and provide instant feedback.
• 4.LLM-Powered Import Pipeline — OCR images go through AWS Textract for text extraction, then Amazon Bedrock Nova Pro for structured recipe parsing. URL imports fetch page content and pass through the same LLM formatting step.

RevenueCat Implementation

RevenueCat powers the premium subscription tier in Fridge Raid, gating AI-powered recipe import features behind a paywall while keeping the core cooking experience free.

RevenueCat paywall UI

Premium OCR recipe scanning

Premium URL recipe import