Skip to content
Forktastic Forktastic Docs

Add items manually to the grocery list

The grocery list is the fourth tab in the bottom bar. Even though Forktastic can auto-populate it from recipes and meal plans, manual entry is essential for everything that’s not in a recipe — milk, eggs, snacks, paper towels, anything else.

Add a single item

Grocery list with the "Enter ingredient" field and quantity/unit inputs at the top.

  1. Open the Grocery tab.
  2. Tap + Add item at the top (or the text field at the bottom of the list, depending on your app version).
  3. Type the item. Forktastic accepts free-form text and parses what it can:
    • “2 lb chicken thighs” → 2 lb chicken thighs
    • “1 dozen eggs” → 1 dozen eggs
    • “Milk” → 1 milk (no quantity inferred)
    • “Paper towels” → paper towels (no unit; that’s fine)
  4. Press Enter (or tap the + button) to add it.

The item appears in the list, sorted into a category Forktastic auto-detects (Dairy, Produce, Meat, Pantry, Household, Other).

Add many items at once

To bulk-add (e.g., from a text shopping list you got from someone):

  1. Tap + Add item.
  2. Type or paste multiple items, separated by newlines: 
    2 lb apples
    1 gallon milk
    bread
    olive oil
    paper towels
  3. Press the paste-detected confirmation, or tap + Add all at the bottom of the multiline input.

Each line becomes one item, with quantities/units parsed where present.

Edit an item

Tap any item in the list to open its detail:

  • Quantity — change the amount
  • Unit — change the unit (lb, oz, gallon, etc.)
  • Name — fix typos or rename
  • Category — move to a different section (auto-detection isn’t perfect)
  • Notes — add a free-form note (“organic if possible”, “store brand is fine”)

Tap Save to commit, or Delete to remove from the list.

Categories

Items auto-sort into categories so you can shop section by section in the store:

  • Produce — fruits, vegetables, fresh herbs
  • Dairy — milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs (yes, even though biologically eggs aren’t dairy — most stores group them with dairy)
  • Meat — beef, chicken, pork, fish, seafood
  • Pantry — dry goods, canned, packaged
  • Frozen — anything in the frozen section
  • Bakery — bread, pastries, fresh-baked
  • Household — non-food items (paper goods, cleaning, toiletries)
  • Other — anything Forktastic couldn’t classify

You can re-categorize manually by tapping the item and changing Category. Forktastic learns from your corrections over time (e.g., if you always re-categorize “tofu” from Pantry to Produce, future tofu items go to Produce).

Sort and group

By default, the list is grouped by category. Change in Grocery → Sort:

  • By category (default) — Produce first, then Dairy, etc.
  • By recipe — groups items by which recipe they came from (useful when prepping for multiple recipes; less useful at the store)
  • Alphabetical — flat list, A–Z
  • By date added — newest first