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Community shelf life and privacy

Pantry Raider suggests a best-by date whenever you add an item. Out of the box those suggestions come from built-in rules of thumb, and optionally from AI. Community shelf life adds a third source: what real kitchens actually chose for the same product. This page explains exactly what that involves, in both directions.

There are two separate switches, in Settings under Inventory & Storage:

  • Use community shelf-life estimates (on by default) downloads a small aggregated table once a day and uses it when suggesting dates. It never sends anything about you or your pantry.
  • Share anonymous expiry corrections (off by default) contributes your own date corrections back to that table. It is opt-in: nothing is shared unless you turn it on, and you are asked once during setup.

Neither switch needs a Forager account. Both can be changed at any time. This page covers only shelf-life sharing; the privacy policy covers everything else the app does with your data.

What is shared when sharing is on

When you change a suggested best-by date while reviewing a scanned item, and then add that item to your pantry, exactly one data point is sent. It contains only:

  • the product barcode, when the item has a real one (store-printed deli and scale labels are never sent, they mean nothing outside that store);
  • the product name, for example "greek yogurt";
  • where you stored it: fridge, freezer, pantry, or other;
  • the shelf life you chose, as a number of days;
  • the shelf life the app had suggested, and whether that suggestion came from a built-in rule, AI, or the community table.

What is never shared

  • Your name, email, or Forager account. The upload carries no sign-in at all.
  • Anything that identifies your device or install: no serial numbers, no install id, no address.
  • Times or dates finer than a day. A data point is just day counts; the server records only the calendar day it arrived.
  • Your location.
  • The rest of your inventory, your recipes, your photos, or anything you did not correct. Keeping a suggested date as-is shares nothing.
  • Anything at all when the switch is off. With sharing off the app does not collect these points even locally, and turning sharing off discards anything still waiting to upload instead of sending it.

How the community table is built

The Forager service collects the shared points and publishes only aggregate numbers: for each product and storage place, the median shelf life and how many kitchens it is based on. A product appears in the table only once at least five separate submissions agree reasonably well, so no single kitchen's data is ever visible on its own, and one odd answer cannot steer anyone's fridge.

How suggestions are prioritized

When the app suggests a best-by date for a new item, sources are applied in this order:

  1. Your own expiry rules (anything you added or edited under Expiry Defaults) always win.
  2. A community value for the product, when one exists and community estimates are turned on.
  3. The built-in rules of thumb.

An AI shelf-life estimate, when you have that feature turned on, continues to behave as before. And a date you type yourself is always kept exactly as you typed it.