I've wasted enough food in my life to stock a grocery store.
So I built something
about it.
Scraps started as one dad's attempt to stop throwing away groceries and start cooking better for his family. Here's why it happened.
— Mitch, founder of Scraps
ORIGIN STORY: LORD OF FLIES
The first time I ever bought my own groceries, I caused a fruit fly infestation in our college apartment. A bag of potatoes putrefied in the pantry. My roommates and I spent a whole day fly-swatting.
At the grocery store, I remember thinking something like, "My mom's always got a bag of potatoes in the house. I'll use these for sure." In the many years since, I've repeated that food waste loop countless times—
a dumpster's worth of moldy, filmed-over condiments. Two chiles for the soup, ten chiles for the trash.
"shelf-stable" spices and pantry goods, aged to dust.
enough rotten produce to feed a county... and all the waste shame that comes with it.
Sure, I've gotten a little wiser. I've tried composting. I've meal-prepped. I've watched YouTube videos and read articles about cooking intuitively, building flavor, and stocking a usable kitchen. But I've come to suspect that cooking creatively without a plan is a natural affinity that varies from person to person— my brother has always disdained recipes, but he still cooks deliciously by feel. That ain't me.
COMPUTERS IN THE KITCHEN
When early ChatGPT hit the market, recipe suggestion requests were one of the first things I tried. The results sucked; I left the app to rot, unopened. But when reasoning models started to get attention in late 2024, I decided to give Claude a shot— and things in the kitchen started to change.
I was getting another home-cooked meal or two on the table between grocery runs. I began getting more out of my produce purchases (and what I manage to grow in my garden). We were relying a little less on store-bought meals and snacks for our toddler.
But Claude (and every other leading chatbot) is an "everything" tool— it's not purpose-tuned to be your kitchen helper. I found myself repeating exposition over and over again: these are the ingredients I've got, these are the tools I have, my wife's a vegetarian who can't eat blue cheese or cilantro, my toddler's into eggs but doesn't understand tortillas, etc.
So I started building Scraps as a personal app to fill in the gaps: help me cook, remember who I'm cooking for, and keep track of the recipes that are worth saving.
Thanks for checking it out.
— Mitch
WHAT SCRAPS IS TODAY
What started as a personal project is now a kitchen companion for anyone who wants to waste less and cook better.
Scraps remembers your pantry, knows your household's allergies and preferences, and helps you turn whatever you've got into something worth eating. It's a cooking partner that actually knows your kitchen.
Pantry-first cooking
Recipes built around what you actually have.
Household-aware
Allergies, preferences, picky toddlers— Scraps remembers so you don't have to repeat yourself.
Cook, don't just browse
Step-by-step cooking mode with timers and checklists. Built for your countertop.
Your fridge is full of
possibilities. Let's cook.
Free to use. No credit card. Just tell Scrap what you've got.
Get CookingJoin home cooks making better meals with what they already have.