Plainfield North Graduates Take Food Expiration App To National Stage

PLAINFIELD, IL — Three Plainfield North High School Class of 2025 graduates have earned national recognition for their entrepreneurial innovation.

Nicholas Powell, Hubert Stasik and Tharun Veeraiah, known as Team Expiri, took their mobile app, a program called Expiri that tracks food expiration dates, to the prestigious INCubatoredu National Pitch Competition, rising to the top 30 out of 60 student startup teams from across the country.

The trio developed the app as part of Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202's own INCubator program, first offered in the 2024-25 school year. The program will be offered at all four district high schools again this fall.

To help reduce food waste and save money, the app notifies users when food items are nearing expiration through barcode scanning. Expiri sends alerts before items spoil, suggests recipes based on available ingredients and gives donation options for unused products.

"When we started with the idea for Expiri, we wanted to solve a real-world problem that impacts people every day — food waste," Veeraiah said, per a District 202 news release. "Making it to the quarterfinals in the INCubatoredu National Pitch proves that innovation can start anywhere, even in a high school classroom."

Although Team Expiri didn't advance to the top five finalists of the National Pitch Competition, it's the only team from District 202 to establish an LLC by the end of the program's inaugural year.

Expiri will soon be available on both the Google and Apple app stores.