Food Shipment Inventory System

The Laramie Soup Kitchen receives food donations from multiple sources: grocery stores, food banks, community drives, and direct donations. When a shipment arrives, volunteers need to log everything: what items, quantities, expiration dates, and where it came from. This tracking is essential for grants, reporting, and making sure nothing spoils.

But here's the problem: food arrives when it arrives. Sometimes it's a slow trickle, sometimes three deliveries show up at once. Volunteers were using paper logs and clipboards, then someone had to type it all into a spreadsheet later. During busy periods, logging fell behind. Produce would sit unrefrigerated while someone hunted for the right form.

The paper system also made it nearly impossible to know what they actually had in stock. 'Do we have enough pasta for this week?' required physically walking through storage and counting. Expiration tracking was a constant worry. Items would spoil because no one knew they were about to go bad.

We designed an inventory system built for speed and simplicity. Volunteers use a tablet stationed at the receiving area. When a shipment arrives, they tap through a streamlined interface: select the source, scan or type items, enter quantities. The whole process takes seconds per item instead of minutes.

The system is designed for the reality of a busy kitchen. Large buttons, minimal typing, and smart defaults mean even first-time volunteers can log donations accurately. Common items are saved for one-tap entry. The interface works even with messy hands or in a hurry.

Real-time inventory tracking means anyone can check stock levels instantly. The system automatically flags items approaching expiration so they get used first. Weekly reports generate automatically for grant compliance, so there's no more end-of-month scrambling to compile numbers.