Track fridge food by expiry date, with the most urgent items always at the top. Saved only in your browser.
The food you forget is the food you throw away
Most food waste at home does not come from cooking too much. It comes from food that hides at the back of the fridge until it is past its best, then gets thrown away unopened. The cost adds up quietly: a few items a week becomes hundreds of pounds or dollars a year, and the waste is avoidable, because the food was fine when it was bought.
This tracker attacks the forgetting, not the cooking. You add each item with its expiry date, and the tool sorts everything by urgency, so the food that must be eaten first always sits at the top. Expired items, food due today, and food due in the next two days get clear labels. Open the tracker when you plan a meal, and the eat-first list becomes your menu.
How to use the tracker
Type the food name and pick its expiry date from the calendar, then click add. The item joins the list in urgency order, not in the order you typed it. An item due tomorrow jumps above an item due next week, even if you added it later. Click the cross next to an item to remove it when you eat it or throw it away.
The tracker saves your list in your own browser on your own device, using local storage. There is no account, no login, and nothing is sent to a server. That privacy is deliberate, but it has a trade-off: the list lives on one device and one browser, so it will not appear on your phone if you added items on a laptop. Use the device you cook with most.
Understanding the labels
The tracker uses four urgency levels. Expired means the date has passed, and the item needs a safety check before use. Eat today means the date is today. Eat first means one or two days remain, which is the window where most waste happens, because two days feels like plenty until life gets busy. Soon means three to five days, which is a good time to plan a meal around the item.
Items with more than five days left show as OK, which means they can wait. Do not ignore them completely, though: check the list once or twice a week, and move OK items into your meal plan as their dates approach. The goal is not to eat everything today, but to never be surprised by an expiry date again.
Dates: use-by, best-before, and common sense
Not all dates mean the same thing. A use-by date is about safety, and it applies to chilled foods that can grow harmful bacteria, such as milk, cooked meat, and ready meals. Food past its use-by date should generally not be eaten, even if it looks and smells fine. A best-before date is about quality, and many foods past that date are still safe, though they may taste less good.
The tracker does not know which kind of date you entered, so it treats every date the same way: as the date to eat by. That is the safe habit for most fridge food. When in doubt, check the label, trust your senses second, and throw food away if you are unsure. Saving a small amount of money is never worth a stomach bug.
A weekly routine that works
The tracker works best with a five-minute weekly habit. When shopping arrives, add new items before they go into the fridge, while the dates are in your hand. When you plan meals, open the tracker first and build at least one meal around the top two items. When you cook, remove items as you use them, so the list stays honest.
Once a week, scan the fridge against the list. If an item is missing from the list, add it. If an item on the list is already gone, delete it. A tracker that drifts from reality stops being trusted, and a tracker that is not trusted stops being used. Five minutes a week keeps it accurate, and accuracy is what saves the food.
Frequently asked questions
Will my list survive closing the browser? Yes, on the same device and browser, because the list is stored locally. Clearing browser data or switching browsers will remove it, so keep that in mind before a browser clean-up.
Can I share the list with my household? Not automatically, because there is no account or cloud sync. The simplest workaround is to keep the tracker on a shared household tablet, or to screenshot the eat-first list for the cook of the day.
What should I do with expired food? Follow the label and food safety guidance for that item. When the label says use-by and the date has passed, throw it away. Do not taste-test food you suspect is unsafe.