Dry & Wet Food Storage For Future Use?

Ok recently my husband has been going on about building a fall out bunker/basement in our UK end terrence home (love the idea of a good sealed dry basement!) But now he also wants me to look into how to store food for longer i.e can,frozen and fresh (fresh both inside a fridge and outside of it *rolls eyes*) and that also means how to keep both dry & wet cat food stored for longer (past the best by date).

His thought is if something happends we will have food that is edible and so will the cats.

I already have a smallish-medium size storage container for dry food (it hold around 9lbs of dry food roughly) and that keeps the food really fresh and I plan to get another to have on hand just in case the other one breaks or I really need to use it. I have also put some dry food in the freezer ( only because my male cat tried to eat the bag. he had fresh dry food in his bowl when he did this) and I put the food in freezer bags and made sure the food was not damp or anything before putting it in and made sure to get out all the air I could.

But it falls down to can you safely store dry food for use after the best by date?

An can canned wet cat food keep well past it's best by date?

Any idea,info etc will help so I can explain it to my hubby why we can or can not store it.

Because I'm already seeing my husband turning into my "father" who would keep food 2+ years past its best by date anyone else thinking eww?

http://www.petsbwell.com/how-to-enhance-the-shelf-life-of-dry-commercial-pet-food/

This article might help. Do point out that one of the reasons for use by dates - particularly in pet food - is that after that point they will no longer be 'complete and balanced' as the nutrients will degrade over time. There's also the risk of food spoilage making your cats sick, not to mention the fact that cats are pretty good at knowing when food has gone off - there's no point having a load of cat food in the shelter if the cats won't eat it!

While I do agree having to much is pointless if they will not eat it and if it has gone bad. I have smelled dry cat food that went past it's use by date that was not stored very well and that smelled gross..it was either the food or the house to be fair or maybe both. I think the person who I visited was a horder!

But thank you I will check out the link. and was thinking if we bought more food then needed could donate it to local shelters as long as it was still with in date. Have been doing that when my husband buys more then 1 bag of a new type of food (works well for my friends cat who gets the used bag and the shelter who gets the new bag) lol

Dry food usually keeps best in the original, unopened bag, in a cool dry place. It's probably okay for a while after the date on it, but I wouldn't use it more than a few months after that date. Once opened it gets exposed to air and will go bad faster, so I wouldn't put it in a different container for long term storage.

Cans are probably fine even well after the expiration date, which is usually a year or two away anyway. I know people have safely eaten canned food (for humans) years after the date on the can.

LOL thats what my "father" said about human canned food thats why he kept cans like 2+ years after the best by date LOL. I am thinking of feeding my cats more can then dry lately as can food can last longer and such plus zooplus has cheaper can food and my cats seem to like darn near all the can food that has been tried thus far from there.

Also if your cat likes to eat the dry food bags (well punch holes in the bag with his teeth anyway) what is the next best thing to put food in i.e a zip loc bag then a storage food container etc.

Dates on canned food as I understand it are more about taste than safety, as well as just a "past this date we won't guarantee anything" so the manufacturer is off the hook after that date.  There may be some question as to whether pop top cans (like most cat food) would have less integrity than some others, but the common best before date even on these is 3 years after the canning date.  I just got some new cans that have dates in early 2018.  Intact canned food that doesn't have any bulging or rusting on the can should be safe fairly indefinitely.

Dry food is harder, as noted.  That stuff seems to deteriorate quickly, especially after opening.  But even unopened I would have trouble trusting it too much past its date on the bag.  Dry food is most adversely affected by moisture or maybe high temperature (the latter shouldn't be a problem).  Extra packaging over and above the intact original bag may help, but if you're going to store any it would not be advisable to remove it from the original bags first.  Keep in regular bag and potentially put the original bags inside another airtight container or such.  But, maybe this will not matter because:

The best way to deal with a food storage like this is to simply ROTATE the food stock on a first in, first out basis.  In other words, yes, go ahead buy a significant supply of food, enough to last for however long, and stock it in the bunker.  But USE that food on an ongoing basis.  When you buy a new supply of food, add it to the bunker, then restock your regular in-use supply from the oldest bunker stock instead of from your newest purchases.  By doing it this way, should you ever actually need the basement as a survival shelter for some reason, the food that will be in it will be the NEWEST food in your home rather than food that's been sitting there for years.  Make sense?  Do the same thing with your human food.  Even bottled water should be rotated out ideally.  The basement should always have the NEWEST stock of food in the house.

There's no reason for the bunker to have long out of date food in it unless you plan on stocking it with 3+ years' worth of supply.  And if that is the case, for cat food I would truly stick to cans for food to last that long.  You'd need a lot of space. ;-)

LOL ya I will defo rotate stock it's bad enough going to the human store and they dont rotate stock. I mean I went to buy bread today and it was its BBD is only 2 days away!.