University of Waterloo student uses A.I. to save families money on grocery bills

A University of Waterloo student’s app is helping some people save money on essentials. CTV’s Heather Senoran finds out how it works.

A University of Waterloo student has developed an app that she said can save families both time and money at the grocery store.

Henrietta van Niekerk is in her fourth year at the university’s Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business and said she is using artificial intelligence (A.I.) to power her app, called Skrimp.AI.

She said the free app can find the best deals at grocery stores, generate lists and can share recipe ideas.

“People can’t really control their car insurance or their rent or their utilities. But grocery bills felt like something we could actually tackle,” she told CTV News.

Van Niekerk said the idea for Skrimp started after she lost a co-op job offer and was looking for another way to get the credit needed to graduate. She entered a pitch competition at the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business and won $5,000 to go towards her start-up. She also received funding from a Velocity program as well as another program from the Waterloo Region Small Business Centre.

She said Skrimp users could be saving a significant amount of money.

“Our users are saving anywhere from about $50 to $100 per week for families,” Van Niekerk said.

She said the app specifically caters to each user. The only info it needs is family size, store preferences and dietary requirements.

She believes Skrimp is proof that A.I. can be used for good and isn’t as bad as some fear it to be.

“Ethical A.I. instead is showing that there should be this coming together of human ingenuity and what the A.I. can provide. Which is also why Skrimp doesn’t make its own recipes. We actually [find] recipes that exist on the internet,” she said.

There are many recipes users can choose from on Skrimp. The goal is to one day partner with influencers or chefs so they can add their own recipes to the app.

“It’s pretty easy to use, user friendly, very straightforward,” said Lisa Freeman, who uses the app.

She is a mother of two and her household has dietary restrictions – they try to eat gluten-free and mostly dairy-free.

“I also appreciated that from the app that the recipes were not causing me to go and find 11 different ingredients and things that I probably would never use again. Or things that I know my kids wouldn’t even try,” Freeman said.

The app is only available for users in Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge for now, but there are plans to expand.

“We’d love to look at rolling out to the GTA next and then doing staggered releases all the way until we have all of Canada covered,” Van Niekerk said.