According to WRAP, UK households throw away £14 billion worth of food every year — roughly £800 per family of four. A large part of that waste comes from the same two causes: forgetting food exists in the fridge, and misreading date labels. An expiry date tracker app solves both. Fango is a free expiry date tracker for iOS today; Android coming soon that scans your grocery receipt and adds products automatically — no manual entry, no sign-up, no cloud account. Also known as a best before app, a fridge tracker app, or a food expiry reminder app — same core function, different names.
- What it does — logs your food with expiry dates and sends a push notification before anything expires
- Best feature to look for — receipt scanning, so you don't have to enter products by hand every shop
- Fango — free, no sign-up, AI receipt scan, works on iOS today; Android coming soon
- Result — less food thrown away, less money wasted
What Does an Expiry Date Tracker Do?
An expiry date tracker is an app that keeps a list of your food items alongside their expiry dates. When a product is approaching its date, the app sends you a push notification — giving you enough time to plan a meal around it instead of finding it mouldy at the back of the fridge a week too late.
The core loop is simple:
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Add your groceries. Either scan your receipt, scan barcodes, or enter products manually depending on the app.
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The app logs expiry dates. Either read from the receipt, the barcode database, or entered by you.
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Get notified. A push notification arrives 1–14 days before a product expires — time to use it.
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Mark as eaten or wasted. The item leaves the list. Over time you can see how much waste you've prevented.
What to Look for in an Expiry Date Tracker
Not all trackers are equally useful. Here is what separates a good one from one you will stop using after a week:
Scan your grocery receipt after shopping — AI reads the products and adds them to your fridge with expiry dates automatically. Get a push notification 1–14 days before anything expires. No sign-up. Fridge data stays on your device.
Download Fango for free
Why Manual Entry Kills Most Trackers
The most common reason people stop using expiry date trackers is manual entry fatigue. A typical weekly shop involves 20–40 items. Entering each one by hand — product name, category, expiry date — takes 5–10 minutes every time. After a few shops, most people give up.
Receipt scanning solves this. Fango uses AI to read your grocery receipt and identify the products automatically. After scanning, the items appear in your fridge list within seconds. The whole process takes about 30 seconds per receipt — regardless of how many products are on it.
Privacy: Where Does Your Data Go?
Many expiry date trackers require you to create an account and store your data in the cloud. That means your shopping habits, dietary patterns, and consumption data is on a server somewhere — often used for analytics or advertising.
Fango takes the opposite approach: fridge data stays on your device. There is no account, no cloud sync, and no user-identifying data collection. Your fridge list is yours alone. This also means the app works fully offline — no internet connection required after the initial download.
How Much Food Waste Can a Tracker Prevent?
According to UNEP, approximately one third of all food produced globally is lost or wasted. At the household level, WRAP research shows UK households waste an average of 70 kg of edible food per person per year — worth £800 per family.
Most of that waste is avoidable. It comes from food being forgotten, bought in excess, or thrown away because of date label confusion. An expiry date tracker directly addresses the first two causes. Used consistently, it can reduce household food waste by a significant margin — and the savings add up quickly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an expiry date tracker?
An expiry date tracker is an app that logs your food items with their expiry dates and sends push notifications before they expire. The best ones include receipt scanning so you don't have to add products manually after every shop.
What is the best free expiry date tracker app?
Fango is a free expiry date tracker for iOS today; Android coming soon. It scans your grocery receipt using AI, adds products automatically, and sends a push notification 1–14 days before anything expires. No sign-up required, fridge data stays on your device.
Does an expiry date tracker app require sign-up?
Most do, but Fango does not. You download it, scan your receipt, and it works immediately — no account, no email, no password.
Can an expiry date tracker scan receipts?
Yes — Fango uses AI to read your grocery receipt and identify the products, adding them to your fridge tracker automatically with estimated expiry dates.
How does an expiry date tracker reduce food waste?
By sending a push notification before food expires, the app gives you time to plan a meal around it. Forgotten food and date label confusion are the two leading causes of household food waste — a tracker eliminates both.