{"id":574193,"date":"2026-07-08T00:34:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T00:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/574193\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T00:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T00:34:17","slug":"virginia-beach-teens-grocerygenius-app-addresses-food-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/574193\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Beach teen’s GroceryGenius app addresses food waste"},"content":{"rendered":"

One Virginia Beach teenager aimed to solve a problem: How can we prevent the average American family of four from throwing away about $1,500 worth of food each year?<\/p>\n

Roughly 30% to 40% of the U.S. food supply \u2014 or roughly 133 billion pounds annually \u2014 goes to waste, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture<\/a> data.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not because we don\u2019t care, but because life gets busy, said Smit Kothari, a 17-year-old rising senior in Ocean Lake High School\u2019s Math and Science Academy. He designed, coded and launched an app, GroceryGenius, that aims to help families spend less, waste less and eat better every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI built GroceryGenius because I kept watching good food go in the trash while so many families struggled to put meals on the table,\u201d Kothari said.<\/p>\n

The meal planning and grocery management app also helps fight hunger in communities by providing a way to get soon-to-expire and surplus food to those in need.<\/p>\n

\u201cTired of staring at your fridge wondering what to cook?\u201d he asks in a YouTube<\/a> video. \u201cIngredients get forgotten and dinner becomes a guessing game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SmitSmit Kothari, a 17-year-old rising senior at Ocean Lake High School\u2019s Math and Science Academy, designed and launched an app, GroceryGenius. (Courtesy\/Smit Kothari)<\/p>\n

He said he identified the problem and decided to leverage technology to help solve it. GroceryGenius uses artificial intelligence to keep track of ingredients in a household\u2019s fridge and pantry and auto generates \u2014 within seconds \u2014 three recipe suggestions with step-by-step instructions, nutritional facts including calories and macros (carbohydrates, fats, proteins), health grades and budget-saving tips.<\/p>\n

The free app, also available online<\/a>, went live on Monday. A subscription is not required; users just create an account with an email address. It is available in six languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese and Japanese.<\/p>\n

It supports dietary preferences including vegetarian, vegan, keto, and gluten-free. Users can scan barcodes or take photos of food items in their household and build smart shopping lists, including price comparisons between Amazon and Walmart, from chosen recipes. A simple drag-and-drop calendar helps with weekly meal planning.<\/p>\n

A separate tab enables users to create alerts for food set to expire. Users can choose to donate those items and surplus food to those in need.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll show you the closest food bank or drop-off place and you choose what you\u2019re going to donate,\u201d Kothari said. \u201cIt shows you how many meals you\u2019re basically giving out and how many pounds of CO2 you\u2019re preventing from being released.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea came to fruition last fall when Kothari registered to compete in the Congressional App Challenge, a yearly competition hosted by members of the U.S. House of Representatives in an effort to encourage students to learn how to code. Contestants are encouraged to look at problems within their community to solve.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what got Kothari thinking. He knew how to code, but had not yet delved into app development.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw that food waste and hunger are very connected,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I thought that two of these problems could be solved with one app.\u201d<\/p>\n

GroceryGenius was a second-place winner for the challenge and is continuing to win in other ways, too. Kothari partnered with the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore in an effort to help with the nonprofit\u2019s\u00a0fight against hunger and food insecurity.<\/p>\n

The app addresses food waste at one of its most important starting points \u2014 inside the home, Christopher Tan, Foodbank president and CEO, said in a news release. Tan is serving as an adviser to the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is encouraging to see a young innovator thinking creatively about how technology can help families make better use of the food they already have while supporting a broader mission of reducing hunger,\u201d Tan said.<\/p>\n

Sandra J. Pennecke, 757-652-5836, sandra.pennecke@pilotonline.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Virginia Beach teenager aimed to solve a problem: How can we prevent the average American family of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[257],"tags":[79,18,19,222894,17,2323,279,3439,82,7958,33058],"class_list":["post-574193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-inside-business","tag-ireland","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mobile","tag-retail","tag-technology","tag-virginia","tag-virginia-beach"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116881553894647962","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}