Answers to the common stuff

Pantry Pal is a pantry-led meal planner. You tell it what's already in your kitchen — by typing it in or scanning it with your camera — and it suggests real meals built around what you already have, generates a shopping list for what's missing, and helps your household plan the week together.

After you sign up, add a few pantry items (type them in or use the camera scan), set your food preferences (diet, dislikes, allergies), and optionally create a household to share planning with the people you live with. The dashboard then builds recommendations from what you've added.

Open the Scan tab and point your camera at pantry shelves, bags, or packaging. Pantry Pal uses AI to identify items in the photo and adds them to your pantry list for you to confirm. You can also scan a barcode directly for a precise match. If the camera doesn't open, check that camera permission is allowed for Pantry Pal in your device settings.

Yes — the Pantry tab has a text field to add items manually at any time, with category suggestions as you type. Camera and barcode scanning are optional shortcuts, not required.

Each pantry item can have a low-stock threshold and an expiry date. When an item drops below its threshold or is close to expiring, it shows up as an alert on your dashboard and can be added to your shopping list automatically.

Pantry Pal recommends recipes based on what's in your pantry, your household's preferences, and your budget. You can build a weekly or monthly plan, and the monthly calendar view is a Premium feature.

When a recipe needs something you don't have, it's added to your shopping list automatically. You can save a shopping plan to reuse or compare later — free accounts can save up to 3 shopping plans at a time; Premium accounts have unlimited saved plans.

The recipe library covers a wide range of cuisines — British, American, Italian, Indian, Chinese and other East/Southeast Asian, Caribbean, African, Eastern European, and more — with real dish names and photos, plus dietary tags (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free) so recommendations respect your household's needs.

Yes. Create a household from the Family page (web) or Family card (mobile), then invite people by email. Each member gets a role — Adult (full access), Shopper (can shop and check off items), or Viewer (can see the plan only) — and everyone invited shares the same pantry, shopping plan, and meal calendar.

If email delivery isn't fully configured yet, the invite screen shows a direct link you can share manually (message, email, etc.) instead of waiting on an email. The invited person needs to sign in with the exact email address the invite was sent to before the link will work.

Premium is £4.99/month. Free accounts get 5 AI photo scans per month and up to 3 saved shopping plans, with everything else (manual add, barcode scan, full recipe access, household sharing) included for free. Premium removes the scan and saved-plan limits and unlocks the monthly meal calendar.

Go to the Pro or Account page and choose "Get Premium" to upgrade via secure Stripe checkout. Once you're Premium, the same screen shows "Manage subscription", which opens Stripe's customer portal where you can update payment details or cancel — cancelling keeps Premium active until the end of the period you've already paid for.

The Security section on the Account page lists every device currently signed in, when it was last active, and lets you sign out any single device or sign out of every other device at once, without needing physical access to it.

On the Account page, "Export my data" downloads a copy of everything tied to your account. "Delete account" permanently removes your account and household data after you confirm your password — this can't be undone.

Email verification confirms we can reach you for account recovery and important notices. You can request a new verification email from the Account page if you didn't get the first one or it expired.

Use "Forgot password?" on the sign-in screen to request a reset link for your account email.

We collect your account details, pantry/preference/household data, and — only when you use those features — photos sent for AI scanning and recipe-photo lookups sent to our processors. Full detail on what's collected, why, and your rights is in the Privacy Policy. Billing is handled entirely by Stripe; we never see or store your card details.