I thought I'd write a review on the Prep & Pantry app.

Summary:

From the Prep & Pantry site:

In short, this app allows you to scan or otherwise input your inventory and all associated data. You can set minimum quantities and the app will generate a shopping list for you based on your actual inventory against your minimum quantities. It will also generate various reports such as expired items and non-zero inventory.

You can add organizational data, just as,

Location - where you are storing it

Tags - just like it sounds

Store - where you bought it

Tags have been helpful to us in that we can just use the "lunch" tag to see what lunch items we have, "dog" to see our dog food inventory, and so on. Location has allowed me to see what we have in the kitchen v the basement, etc. I don't use the Store data.

It has a sync capability that allows you to create a "group" in the Prep & Pantry cloud. Other Prep & Pantry users can join the group if they know the group name and the password. All users in the group can sync to the group. I am running the app across 3 accounts on 4 devices and have never experienced any conflicts in syncing across devices.

You can export all of your data to a csv and send it to yourself in an email. A csv export was an absolute must for me. No way was I putting all of this data into something that I could not pull data out of.

The app can be used to track more than just food .. you can use it for gear, medical, etc. I just use it for food and pharmacy. I initially tried to use it for EDC and other supplies, but it's cumbersome for that. If you like organizing yourself via tags and locations then it would work fine for those things. Ultimately I discovered that I just didn't want gear in this app.

In order to use the sync feature and the other higher end features you have to purchase the full version. It's $7.99 for the full version, and I've had to pay that for both the iOS and the Android versions, but I think it has been worth it.

I have tried multiple apps and methods, and this is the only one that has worked for me so far.

One thing to remember if you do purchase this app, is that you only have to purchase each version once, per account. I bought the app on my iPhone, expecting to install it on the iPad without paying again, just like every other app from the app store. However when I installed it on the iPad it looked like a new purchase and it asked for the full price again. If you look around you can find the instructions to "restore" the app, and that will allow you to install it for free. Not sure if that's how it is on the Android. I have it running on 2 Android devices, but it's across 2 different accounts.

Screenshots and observations.

Here's the main screen on the iOS app:

This is the first screen that you see when you open the app. It's super easy to scan here, and the interface is pretty intuitive so you shouldn't have trouble finding your way around.

When you scan a code, it may or may not have that code in the system. If it does, you will see something like this:

So you can accept this an it will auto-populate whatever it knows. You are left to input things like location and expiration date, which is helpful if you have multiple food storage locations. You can also input servings and calories.

In the event that the Prep & Pantry system does not recognize your code, you can go ahead and input the data yourself. You have the option to submit your data to the Prep & Pantry cloud, so that others can benefit from your data entry. So once the data is put in once, the system should recognize that code from then on.

If you call up the list view your inventory, you'll see something like this

Here you can see the list by alphabetical order. Each item is shown with the weight and a minimum quantity (Qm) and the quantity on hand (Qt).

Across the top you can see the 4 options in List view. The above is the alphabetical view. This is the Exp view, which is expiration dates:

The other two options in List view are "location" and "tag."

The next view across the bottom is the cart. Here's mine:

It tells you the quantity info, how many you need, and the store location. I use pretty much the same store for everything so it really isn't a useful field for me. I don't use this cart view much.

The Android app is a little different. When I get some time I will upload screenshots from that one.

TLDR:

The Prep & Pantry app is everything it says it is. It's worth the money and it's easy to use.

Hope this helps, and feel free to let me know if you have questions.

Prep & Pantry website

thanks to The Daily Prep for the app recommendation

I use the ioS app on my iPhone 4 and iPad Air. My Droid device is a Samsung Galaxy S4.

Though the performance and interface seem to be identical, I prefer using my phone.