Can I eat this?
Most recall apps tell you your brand was recalled. That's usually a false alarm — recalls apply to specific lot codes, not whole products.
This one reads the code actually stamped on your package and tells you whether your food is the one that was recalled.
Free. No account needed to try it.
Photograph it
The label and the little stamped lot code, usually on a seam or lid.
We read the codes
Lot number, UPC, best-by date, establishment number.
Yes, No, or Maybe
Matched against every active recall, plus USDA storage life.
Recalls are not rare events any more.
There were 320 food recalls in the US in 2025, up 8.1% on the year before, tied to 1,003 illnesses, 235 hospitalisations and 22 deaths across 28 outbreaks. Nearly half came from undeclared allergens or foreign objects, where the only thing separating an affected package from a safe one is a code printed on the box.
Check a food or brand
Search every active recall by kind of food or by who makes it. No package or date needed.
Where the lot code hides
This is the bit that decides whether your package is the recalled one. It's rarely near the barcode.
Cans & jars
Stamped on the lid or the bottom rim.
Bottles & jugs
Inkjet-printed on the shoulder or neck.
Boxes
On the top or bottom flap, near the glue seam.
Bags & pouches
On the crimped seal at the top or bottom.
Your pantry
Everything you've scanned, re-checked against new recalls every night.
Your pantry is waiting
Sign in and every scan is kept here, with the photo marked up so you can see which printed code the verdict came from. Everything gets re-checked against new recalls each night.
Nothing saved yet
Scan something while signed in and it lands here, with the photo marked up so you can see which printed code the verdict came from.
Community
What other people are scanning.
Nothing posted yet
Scan something, then choose to share it. You can post under a name or anonymously.
Recall monitor
Connecting…
Built out of
a real hesitation.
I have always been the person standing at the open fridge at eleven at night, holding a container, doing math. The leftovers are five days old. The yogurt is a week past the date. The jar has been open since some weekend I cannot place.
Food poisoning is a genuinely miserable way to lose two days, so I usually threw it out. Then I would think about how much good food I had just wasted on a guess. That guess is the whole reason this exists.
Nobody should have to gamble on dinner. The information already exists. It was just never pointed at the thing in your hand.
What it actually does
Three questions, answered from primary sources rather than vibes.
Is it recalled?
Matched on the lot code stamped on your package, not just the brand name, so a nationwide headline does not become a false alarm in your kitchen.
Is it still good?
USDA FoodKeeper storage life applied to the date on the package and where you have been keeping it, because pantry, fridge and freezer are three different clocks.
Will I hear about it later?
Anything you save gets re checked against new recalls every night. You only get a message when something you actually own is covered.
I am a sophomore at the University of Miami studying Innovation, Technology and Design, and I have spent most of my life taking things apart to find out why they behave the way they do. That started with cars and turned into software. CanIEatThis? is the first product where those two habits pointed at the same problem: a system nobody had bothered to make legible to the person actually holding the food.
Everything here is mine end to end, from the recall ingestion pipeline and the code parser to the interface you are reading. It runs on Cloudflare Workers with a D1 database and a nightly job that pulls from openFDA, USDA FSIS and CPSC.
Founder, CanIEatThis?
Designed and shipped a full stack food safety platform: multi agency recall ingestion, lot code parsing, expiry modeling and overnight monitoring for saved items.
Engineering Intern, CrunchLabs
Prototyping and product engineering with Mark Rober's team, moving concepts through iteration into things people could hold.
Technician, Gintani Performance and 412 Motorsport
High performance automotive work where diagnosis had to be exact. Good practice for a product whose entire value is not being wrong.
Founder and President, Oakwood Car Club · Automotive creator
Built a club from nothing and an audience of more than 70,000 alongside it, learning how to explain a technical thing to people who did not ask for a lecture.
Standing at the fridge right now?
Photograph the label and the stamped code. You will have an answer in a few seconds.