Always at home: staples back on the list

What it does (Premium)

Pantry auto-add fills the pantry from your shopping. Always at home works the other way round: when a product runs low in the pantry, Mealuna adds it to the shopping list, in the amount you usually buy.

It is off until you switch it on, and each shopping list has its own setting: in that list's Pantry settings, under Automatic adding to the list, turn on Add to the list when running low. The list's ⋯ menu also has Always at home, which shows the same switch while it is off, and keeping a product always at home from its own row turns the switch on for you.

Which products it covers

Mealuna learns the products from your purchases. A product counts once you have bought it on at least four different days at a steady pace; several purchases on the same day count as one. The usual amount comes from your recent purchases, so it follows your habits as they change, and a product you have stopped buying drops out by itself.

The products are shown in three groups:

• Learned from purchases: the products Mealuna picked up by itself.
• Added by you: any product from this list's pantry except things you make from a recipe, including one you have never bought. Add a product also finds any other product by search or a scan. The picker stays open, so you can add several in a row. With no purchases to learn from, the amount it has in the pantry when you add it stands in for the usual amount.
• Left out: products you do not want added. They stay in view so you can bring them back.

Keeping a product from its own row (Premium)

You can keep a product always at home wherever you see it. On the Everyday products sheet, swipe its row right; in the pantry, swipe right and tap Always at home. Anywhere — the sheet, the pantry or the shopping list — you can also touch and hold the row and choose Always keep at home. Remove from Always at home, in red, takes it off again.

A product kept always at home has a green house beside its name on the shopping list, in the pantry and on the Everyday products sheet.

If the product is not at home when you keep it — not in the pantry, or marked out — Mealuna puts it on the shopping list right away. This happens once, when you keep it or when you turn the list's switch on; taking it off the list afterwards does not bring it back.

When a product is added

Each list has one limit, set with a slider as a share of the usual purchase: from 0 to 70%, and 30% until you change it. At 0% a product is added only when it is out. Under the slider, an example shows what the limit means for a product Mealuna learned from your purchases.

A product is added when its quantity in the pantry drops from above the limit to the limit or below, for example after cooking, after you correct the quantity, when you mark it out, when automatic decrease lowers it, or when you log a food from the pantry in your food diary. If you usually buy 1 kg and the limit is 30%, 1 kg goes on the list once 0.3 kg or less is left.

A product that is already on the list, or already in the cart, is not added again. Sauces and other things you make from a recipe are never added: they are cooked, not bought.

Adjusting it product by product

Open Always at home to see the three groups, from the list's ⋯ menu or from Pantry settings. Tap a product to give it a limit of its own; the list's percentage still applies to all the others. Swipe a learned product to leave it out, swipe one you added to remove it, and swipe a left-out product the other way to restore it.

A product the app cannot judge says why, and is not added until that is solved:

• Bought in another unit than it is kept in, so the two cannot be compared.
• No purchases to learn from and no amount to start from: it waits for the first purchase, or you give it a limit of its own. Until then, marking it out works as usual.
• Not in the pantry right now.

Seeing and undoing what was added

When something is added, a message names it and offers Undo. Marking a product out, cooking a recipe or logging a food from the pantry mentions the addition in that same message rather than in a second one. A request to Siri adds without a message, and a product kept from the Everyday products sheet shows it by lighting up its Buy mark instead.

Only the phone on which the pantry changed adds the product, so a group with several phones does not get it twice.