Špajza: less money, more taste!
Grocery flyers are a very useful resource. The amount of saving they allow you to do is sadly balanced out by how inconvenient they are to use. They are separate for each grocery chain, they are cluttered and difficult to read, they are deliberately confusing; not to mention how often they include pages of products which aren’t on sale at all.
Špajza aims to bypass these drawbacks and give customers access to a clean, browsable catalogue of good deals.
The problem and the solution
The main reason I built Špajza is to simplify price‑conscious weekly shopping. In Slovakia the market is highly price‑sensitive and brand loyalty is low.
But I’ve since realized an opportunity to make Špajza even more useful. The main problem Špajza solves is wasting money and/or food.
Most people don’t have time for precise meal planning based on discounted products and already owned/prepared ingredients. Špajza, however, is more than ready to take on this job - at least for our premium users.
What Špajza actually does
Špajza checks when new catalogues are published by major grocery chains. It parses the products and extracts their prices. The deals appear in a list inside the app where users can search for specific products, product categories, or the store they want to shop at. They can also place products into a shopping list directly in the app with a simple tap.
Each week, Špajza prepares a few broadly appealing recipes and shows them to users so they can add all the required products to their cart in one go.
Premium Features
Custom recipes
Add cuisine preferences, allergies, disliked foods, and favorite ingredients to create a weekly meal plan tailored to you (and your family). Špajza assembles recipes from products on sale and can also factor in what you already have at home.
Pantry tracking
As the name suggests, Špajza can track your pantry. The goal is to buy only what you need - no more, no less. Track items and expiration dates. The app notifies you before something spoils and adjusts weekly recipes to minimize food waste.
Family sync
Shopping lists are tricky when the cook and the shopper aren’t the same person. The Premium plan covers up to four people (a family) who can share shopping lists, like or dislike recipes in the weekly meal plan, and add their own requests.
Tech that it's built on
Špajza starts as a backend, always‑online service. The API is written in Laravel with a custom server stack, including local multimodal LLMs. Parsing uses an optimized, custom‑trained multimodal LLM with OCR as a final check.
The Špajza app is built on React Native with an offline‑first architecture. Sync happens when the device is connected to the internet, and data persists so connectivity isn’t required while shopping.
Status and Roadmap
Currently, Špajza is in closed testing. This is my first time submitting an app to the app stores, so the process hasn’t been as smooth as I anticipated. So far, 14 testers are using Špajza heavily. There are still things to iron out, and pricing is yet to be finalized.
After closed testing and successful app‑store reviews, Špajza will roll out to open testing and, hopefully, a full‑on release.