Already a crisis
Something behind the beans has seen three presidents. Those dates sort to the top, in terracotta, so they are hard to miss.
iPhone and iPad · 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 and iPad
The crisis, in three moods
Expired, this week, or all clear. The banana’s face is the status.
About to be one
The yogurt has a few days. The list puts “this week” next, before the calm stuff you can ignore.
Nothing is dying
When the shelf is fine, the meter stays empty and the banana can sit down. That is the whole point of looking.
What 1.0 actually ships
Honest scope. No recipe AI. No Android. No account of ours.
Pantry and expirations
Name, quantity, place, notes, photo, and a date. Search and sort with expired and this week up top. Optional reminders stay on the device.
Barcode scanning
Live scan or a photo. A lookup on Open Food Facts can fill the name. The UPC is cached on the phone. Offline? Type it.
Receipt scanning
Photograph a grocery receipt. Apple’s Vision reads the text on the phone. The image and the words do not leave the device.
Shopping trips and prices
A list for the store, a trip while you shop, and the prices you actually paid. All of it stays with that pantry.
Pantries and iCloud
More than one pantry. Share one of them through iCloud, person by person. Tapping the invite opens it. No login of ours.
Backups, with photos
Export this pantry or everything on the phone, photos included. Import the file later as new pantries you own.
Honest price
One price. The whole app.
$6.99 USD · once
Paid on the App Store. On a new iPhone or iPad, download it again from Purchased with the same Apple ID.
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.
- Export and import a pantry or everything, photos included.
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, trips, prices, and lists live on device. The pantry works offline.
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.
Receipts stay here
Receipt text is read on the phone. The photo and the words are not uploaded.
Optional iCloud
Household sharing uses Apple CloudKit. Apple’s account. Apple’s privacy policy. Not ours.
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 iPhone or iPad. 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.