Life In Progress

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted anything here.

If you’ve stopped by the website recently, you might have noticed a few small changes slowly appearing here and there. Things have definitely still been happening behind the scenes. Life has been progressing… I’ve just been a little slower at actually documenting it.

Which, considering the name of this blog, feels strangely appropriate. 😅

There are plenty of things I need to catch up on, but today I can finally share one of the things that has been taking up a rather large chunk of my attention lately.

Pantry Pal is officially live in Beta on Android!

So… what is Pantry Pal?

Pantry Pal is an app we’ve been working on to make keeping track of the food you already have at home a little easier.

It started with a pretty simple idea: what if it was easier to know what food you actually have?

Because I can’t be the only person who buys something, puts it in the cupboard or freezer, completely forgets it exists, and then discovers it several months later while looking for something else.

Or, even better, buys another one in the meantime because I was absolutely convinced I didn’t have any.

Pantry Pal is designed to help keep all of that in one place.

You can keep track of what’s in your cupboard, fridge and freezer, create your shopping list, save recipes, plan meals and get reminders when food is getting close to its expiry date.

The idea is to make the inevitable “What do I actually have at home?” moment a little less chaotic, while hopefully wasting a little less food along the way.

From an idea to an actual app

A lot of the work on Pantry Pal has happened quietly behind the scenes.

And when I say we’ve been working on it, I really do mean we.

Beta Together isn’t a big company or a large development team. It’s just two individuals figuring out this whole digital app-building journey together.

We’ve been learning as we go, working through ideas, designing, building, testing, fixing things, changing our minds, and occasionally discovering that something that seemed like a brilliant idea doesn’t actually work quite as brilliantly once you try to use it.

Then we go back and change it again.

There has been a lot to learn, and there’s still plenty more ahead of us, but that’s part of what has made reaching this stage feel like such a big milestone.

Because Pantry Pal has reached the point where other people can actually use it.

Pantry Pal is now in Beta Testing

Pantry Pal is currently in its Beta Testing phase on Android, which gives us the chance to see how the app works in the real world, not just while we’re building and testing it ourselves.

If you decide to give Pantry Pal a try during Beta, you’ll be among the first people to use it.

And we’d love to hear what you think along the way.

If something is confusing, something doesn’t work quite right, or you find yourself thinking “I really wish it did this…”, you can send us your feedback and help us make Pantry Pal better as it continues to grow.

There will probably be a few bumps along the way. That is, after all, what Beta is for!

Want to be one of the first to try Pantry Pal?

If you have an Android device, you can now find Pantry Pal on Google Play.

👉 Try Pantry Pal on Google Play

Using an iPhone? We haven’t forgotten about you!

We’re working towards bringing Pantry Pal to Apple devices soon too. There are still a few things we need to work through before we get there, but an iOS release is very much part of the plan.

A quick note about Beta access: This isn’t a paid testing programme. Pantry Pal is a paid app, so the normal subscription or purchase options shown in the app apply. Joining during Beta simply means you’re getting to use Pantry Pal while it’s still in this early testing and development stage.

And if you do decide to give it a try, we’d genuinely love your feedback, whether you find a bug, have an idea, find something confusing, or just want to tell us about something you like.

A little Life in Progress update

So yes, it has been quiet around here.

But not because nothing has been happening.

Quite the opposite, really.

Life has continued moving along in the background, the website has been slowly changing with it, and this little app-building adventure has taken up a lot of the time and attention I might otherwise have spent writing about everything.

There are still plenty of things I want to catch up on here. And hopefully I’ll be a little better at documenting them before another suspiciously large gap appears between posts.

But for now, I’m really happy that I can finally share this one.

Two people started with an idea, decided to see if we could actually build it, and somewhere along the way that idea became an app that people can now download and use.

It’s still a work in progress.

But then again, so are we.

And I think that fits rather nicely around here.

Pantry Pal is live on Android. Apple, we’re coming for you next.

Let’s see where it goes.