PantryPal

an AI cooking partner, on the App Store

role
Product Designer
when
Nov 2025 – Present
Download on the App Store (opens in a new tab) Try it here
the story in five courses

Overview

PantryPal answers one question: what can I cook with what I already have?

role
Product Designer
when
Nov 2025 – Present
platform
iPhoneiOS 17
built with
FigmaSwiftUIGemini
  1. Sketchlate 2025
  2. PrototypeJan 2026
  3. BuildJul 2026
  4. RethinkAug 2026
  5. ShipSep 2026
the why

Problem

good food, wasted, and recipes that never start from your shelf

thrown away, uneaten

Wasted Food

30–40% of the U.S. food supply goes to waste, the USDA estimates, often because no one knows what to make with what’s left.

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Waste FAQs (opens in a new tab)

recipes without a kitchen

Impersonal Recipes

Millions of recipes online, written for everyone at once, and almost none of them start from what’s actually sitting on your shelf.

the question they leave

How might dinner start from what’s already on the shelf?

built for

first-apartment cooks college students busy families
running on this page

The chef, live: PantryPal, running on this page

late 2025

Chapter 1: Sketch

three ways to hold a shelf

Three layouts on graph paper. The third became the hub of the first build in Figma.

  1. Wireframe one: ingredients kept in fridge, freezer and pantry buckets

    buckets, set aside

  2. Wireframe two: a portal to update and add ingredients

    portal, set aside

  3. Wireframe three: one consolidated shelf, organized by food type

    one shelf, kept

The hub of the first Figma build: Choose ingredients!, a grid of meat under six category tabs, with Add to Shelf and My Basket
the hub, in Figma
Jan 2026

Chapter 2: Prototype

six screens in Figma

In Figma the app found its sticker-and-ink world: a butter-yellow kitchen, a chef, food drawn like stickers. The flow was the familiar one: pick ingredients into a basket, check out, choose from a list, then cook.

  1. Log in: Let’s get cooking!, with an email and a password1log in
  2. Choose ingredients: a grid of food under six category tabs, with Add to Shelf and My Basket2pick
  3. Scan Receipt: a photographed receipt with a cross and a tick3scan
  4. My ingredients: the basket listed by category, with a Find recipes button4check out
  5. My recipes: three generated dishes with calories and protein5choose
  6. Recipe: the ingredient strip, the dish, and numbered steps6cook

The look

a warm kitchen, and two faces for two jobs

PantryPal’s chef, giving a thumbs-up
  • Carrot
  • Avocado
  • Tomato
  • Cheddar cheeseburger
  • Bell pepper
  • Broccoli
  • Shrimp
  • Butter#FFD67E
  • Coral#FF7E7D
  • Sky#B8EDF8
  • Red#FF4B4B
  • Fugaz Oneto tap
  • Faustinato read
Jul 2026

Chapter 3: Build

the Figma file becomes a phone

Then I built it for real, in SwiftUI, with Claude Code as a pair. The design system came first, lifted out of Figma into tokens and components, so every screen after it was built from the same parts, and checked against its Figma frame. Each step below is the file it really is.

how it looks

one source of truth
  1. FigmaLogin1 of 6 frames
  2. tokenscolors.json+ 6 files
  3. PantryPalDSPPPrimaryButton.swift4 of 17

how it thinks

no keys in the app
  1. the phoneChefBook.jsonoffline
  2. a proxyillustrate.tsholds the keys
  3. Geminirecipes.tswrites dishes
  4. and backCateredPick.swiftnever a spinner

Every drawing, one contract

a style guide written for Gemini, so every food it draws comes back as one of the app’s stickers

  1. 1the rules, written once

    illustration-style.json

    • a bold cartoon stickerrendering_style
    • thick near-black outlineoutline
    • the food’s real colour, ampedpalette
    • one darker tone, a white shineshading
    • one object, a slight ¾ turncomposition
    • nothing behind itbackground_treatment
    • no text, no shadow, no gradientnegative_prompt
    • playful, but food stays foodcuteness

  2. 2the prompt they write

    to Gemini

    a bold cartoon sticker-style illustration of tomato, thick near-black outline, flat saturated natural colors, simple cel shading with one darker tone and small white glossy highlights, minimal interior detail lines, single object centered at a slight three-quarter angle filling most of the canvas, plain transparent background, no text, no cast shadow, no gradients, playful children’s-cookbook energy

    Avoid: text, letters, watermark, photorealism, 3d render, gradients, drop shadow, background scenery, pattern, multiple objects, hands, humans, border, frame.

  3. 3Gemini draws it

    The tomato Gemini drew to the rules tomato

165 drawings in the app, one set of rules. Send another food through:

Aug 2026

Chapter 4: Rethink

fourteen pots on one stove

Living with the real app showed what the prototype had hidden: its first screen was a control panel.

Cognitive overload

14things asking for your first tap

  • 6 foods
  • 6 shelf tabs
  • 2 buttons
The old first screen, Choose ingredients!, dark but for its fourteen tap targets: six foods, six shelf tabs, Add to Shelf and My Basket
Sep 2026

Chapter 5: Ship

on the App Store

Every chapter ends up on one phone. This is the app as it shipped, every screen of it, from the front door to a plate.

  1. Join the kitchen!: a kitchen pass that asks for one nameThe prototype’s log in: Let’s get cooking!, with an email and a password
    11joinlog in
  2. How it works!: three tickets on the rail, your ingredients, PantryPal thinks, dinner made, stamped Every meal!
    2tour
  3. Hey, chef!: What’s in your kitchen?, over a pile of food, with Scan my groceries and Type my groceries
    3hey, chef
  4. Scan it in: two doors, a receipt or the food itself
    4scan
  5. Looks good?: my own fridge, photographed in the app, with Retake and Scan itThe prototype’s scan: a photographed receipt with a cross and a tick
    53snapscan
  6. Scanning…: the photo, read under a beam
    6scanning
  7. Found these!: nineteen foods read off the fridge, each with its drawing and its count, and Add 19 to my shelfThe prototype’s check out: the basket listed by category, with a Find recipes button
    74checkcheck out
  8. Type it in!: an ingredient’s name, the six just added, and staples to grab
    8type it in
  9. Dinner!, the chef cooking: a pencil writing a dish out of the food you have
    9the chef writes
  10. Dinner!: the chef’s top pick, a cheddar cheeseburger, all on your shelf, with Start cooking and Next dishThe prototype’s choose: three generated dishes with calories and protein
    105dinnerchoose
  11. The recipe: the ingredient strip, the dish, and its steps to tick offThe prototype’s cook: the ingredient strip, the dish, and numbered steps
    116cookcook
  12. My shelf: everything on hand by food type, each food a drawing with its countThe prototype’s pick: a grid of food under six category tabs, with Add to Shelf and My Basket
    122shelfpick
  13. Settings: the season pass, the app’s switches, and the chef
    13settings

Every iPhone

from the smallest to the largest, and the biggest text

Shipping also meant holding its shape on any iPhone. Every screen is shot from the smallest iPhone to the largest, and again at the biggest text size, and a layout test fails if a single button leaves the screen.

tools / ui-sweep

The dinner screen on an iPhone SE, a 14 zoomed, a 16 and a 16 Pro Max, holding the same layout The shelf on four iPhone sizes The recipe on four iPhone sizes The sign-up screen on four iPhone sizes

The store page

drawn like the app, one headline a panel

And the store page is drawn like the app. Five panels, one headline each, opening on a kitchen docket instead of a phone.

  1. Order up: a kitchen docket reading You already have everything for this
  2. Takes one name to start
  3. Dinner, already decided
  4. Just show it your fridge
  5. Your kitchen, on your phone
Nov 2026

Results

live on the App Store

PantryPal is on the App Store for anyone to cook with, and the store keeps count. Seven people have rated it, and every one of them gave it five stars.

PantryPal: Cook What You Have, on the App Store: 5.0 from 7 ratings, ages 4+, Food & Drink, version 1.3.0
the listing
App Store Connect’s overview of PantryPal, to November 1: 36 first-time downloads, 6 redownloads, a conversion rate of 11.2% a day on average, 861 impressions, 397 product page views, 21 updates, $33 in proceeds and 4 in-app purchases
App Store Connect, to November 1

What I learned

it’s all about iteration

Nothing in PantryPal came out right the first time. Every part of it went round the same loop, and stayed open to change until real use settled it.

  1. Grow the look in FigmaA visual language has to be grown by hand. The kitchen, its stickers and its chef came from screen after screen.
  2. Hand it to friendsPut it out early, rough as it is. Friends find what your own eyes have stopped seeing.
  3. Ship it, then listenThe real issues only turn up in real kitchens, on real phones. It shipped as 1.0; it’s on 1.3 now.
  4. Change your mindStay open and flexible. When use proves the plan wrong, change the plan, and go round again.

what every lap leaves behind

Cement it in a system, so AI can carry it.

What survives a lap gets written down: the tokens, seventeen components, and a style guide Gemini draws to. Once the language lives in the system, AI does the repeat work in it, Claude Code building screens from its parts and Gemini drawing every food as one of its stickers, and my time goes to the next lap.