Forgotten cans
Something behind the beans has seen three presidents. You need a list that sorts by “about to die,” not by vibes.
iPhone · App Store 1.0
Your pantry is having a moment.
ShelfLife Crisis remembers what’s on the shelf, when it expires, and what to buy next. Witty under stress. Slightly panicked. The way apps used to be.
Buy once. Local pantry. No paywalls.
App Store — coming soon $6.99 one-time · iPhone
The crisis, in three cans
Forgotten food. Rented lists. Cloud accounts for a jar of pickles. None of that is required.
Subscription fatigue
You should not lease a grocery list. One App Store price unlocks the app. No “Pro.” No feature hostage.
Cloud creep
A pantry does not need our login. Data stays on your phone. Household share is optional Apple iCloud — not an account of ours.
What 1.0 actually ships
Honest scope. No recipe AI. No Android-first detour. No custom backend to babysit your soup.
Pantry inventory
Add, edit, delete: name, quantity, unit, location, notes, expiration, photo. Search and sort with expired and “this week” up top.
Barcode + Open Food Facts
Live scan or scan-from-photo. We look up a name, cache the UPC on device, and stay polite about rate limits. Offline? Type it yourself.
Shopping lists
A local-first list for the next store run. When iCloud household sync is on, the list can travel with the pantry.
Photos on the item
Snap the shelf, the label, or the mystery jar. Pictures stay on the phone unless you choose to sync or export.
Expiration alerts
Optional system notifications so the yogurt doesn’t become a science project. Permission is yours to grant or ignore.
iCloud household sync
Share a pantry with partners or roommates through Apple — Family or invite. We do not run OAuth. We do not want your password.
Honest price
One price. The whole app.
$6.99 USD · once
Paid on the App Store. Restore on a new iPhone with the same Apple ID. That’s the monetization slide.
What you are not buying
- No subscription, no trial that locks your own pantry.
- No freemium, no in-app “Premium,” no paywalled barcode.
- No account of ours to forget, reset, or leak.
- JSON export/import so you can leave with your data.
App Store listing not live yet
Privacy, said out loud
We don’t have a server to lose your cumin on. Here’s what actually leaves the phone.
Local-first
Inventory, photos, and lists live on device (SQLite). The app works offline for the pantry.
Open Food Facts lookups
A barcode goes to their public API so we can fill a name. Your list does not. Repeat scans hit a local cache.
Optional iCloud
Household sync uses Apple CloudKit if you turn it on. Apple’s account. Apple’s privacy policy. Not ours.
No ads, no trackers
No sale of data. No behavioral SDKs. The full policy is written for App Store Connect, not a cookie banner.
Why this exists
Someone (hi) kept buying spices they already owned, then found a graveyard of cans with dates from another decade. The other pantry apps wanted a monthly tribute and a cloud login. That felt like the crisis.
So: buy once. Keep the list on the phone. Share a household through iCloud if you want. Look up a barcode on Open Food Facts when you’re online. That’s the whole plot.