When you’re in the dairy aisle at the grocery store, do you check the expiration date on milk before you put it in your cart? The majority of people do.
When you shop for cat food, do you check the expiration date on the food before you buy it? Most people don’t.
Recently, one of our local big box pet supply stores received pallets of food past the best-by date printed on the packaging. The store employees, in a hurry to stock many shelves, didn’t check the dates and put the food on the shelves. When it was brought to their attention, they pulled the products they were told about, but they weren’t able to look through every package in the store to see if more mistakes had been made. There were still more bags of out-of-date food on their shelves.
Thankfully, there’s no scary ending to this story with a sick cat or dog because our sharp-eyed friend caught the out-of-date food, both times. But it brought up a really important issue: pet food goes from the manufacturer to the warehouse and then to the store. The date printed on packages of food is usually a year from the date of manufacture for dry food. Canned food, preserved with heat sterilization and vacuum preservation in an oxygen-free environment, has a longer shelf life than dry food, usually about two years from manufacture date. If a bag or can sits too long at either the warehouse or store, it could be past the printed sell-by date.
It’s easy to be sure that no one else missed pulling old product from the shelves. Just take a look at the date on your bags or cans when you shop and help keep your cats safe and happy.
References and further reading:
Wellness, Nutrition and Canned Dog Food
Pet Education, Shelf Life of Pet Food
Pet food aisle photo courtesy giletti on flickr creative commons
Thanks for the reminder!
The mom always checks the expiration dates when she buys foods at the pet store.
In Asia they often print the date of when something was packaged, instead of an expiration day. (This caused a lot of confusion for me in the beginning.)
Unfortunately I do not know how long wet cat food in a sealed bag will last. Do I count off one year, or two?
That’s the first thing Mum does too when she is buying our foods.
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
Excellent advice!!! We need to remind Mom about this.
Mom and Dad have a friend who bought a box of Good n Plenty from Walmart a couple of weeks ago. They were in the checkout and the clerk was stocking the shelf. the bought it and thought they were really hard. The husband broke a tooth on it! When they checked the expiration it was from the beginning of 2014!!!!
The Florida Furkids
Great info. Our peeps always do check those pesky dates.
Thank you for this post, I rarely take the time to check the dates, but I will now.
I have to confess that I rarely look at expiration dates on pet food…they are usually dated so far ahead that I just never think of it! I waited almost a year to donate Tara’s unused food to our shelter and it still had nearly a year before it’s date! But now it’s on my radar!
Thank you for the reminder! I tend to not check the expiration dates on cat food because I assume that the store has checked them. I will remember to check the dates from now on.
guys…thanx for de post…inn deed de food serviss gurl doez chex out thoz dates…. az well az checkin ta make sure de kibble bag iz seeled rite….her getted a bag once that had a scissor cut across de top…. N nother time her getted one wear de bag was partial lee open…lesson lurned ….her iz veree care full in her inspecshunz oh kibble bags now ….. sted oh just pickin it up & tossin it in de cart ♥♥
AFTER MY UPSET TUMMY SAGA IN FEB AND MARCH MOM READS ALL THE LABELS…I’M NOW ON GRAIN FREE AND DOING HUNKY DORY.
HUGS MADI YOUR BFFF
Excellent idea!!!
We always check the dates now…thanks for the reminder.
Please come on by our updated post and help make a child smile…today is the final day.
Noodle and crew
A very important thing to share with everyone – thanks for the reminder!
Thanks for the reminder ! It’s useful for Mum mostly ; Dad is an expiration dates checking expert (or maniac ?) ! Purrs
good to remember….we will whap the mom cause we are sure she doesn’t check
Wow, I never check the date. I do with the food I eat but not the cat food. Thanks.
from the catmom.
and if you buy food that is less popular, the stock doesn’t rotate as quickly.. it is a shame this information isn’t a little more obvious..
yet another reason why I’m glad I make my own
I always check dry food but never canned. I appreciate this reminder.
For human food, my husband finds food at the grocery store quite frequently that’s passed the expiration date. Not good!
TW always checks expiration dates especially on dry food because a bag takes so long to use the way she rations it. She noticed a lot of the samples she picks up at conventions are past due or almost past due.
Mum checks that kind of stuff. Both for her and me!
We will remind our mom that she needs to do this every time she buys our food. Thanks for the reminder!
Mom never thought about checking this for us. Everything that comes in the house gets eaten up so quickly, and she just assumed what was on the shelves at the store would be within limits. Thanks for giving us a heads-up. XOCK, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
My mom-person alway´s check the date both on cat and human food 🙂
XOXO