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How I Fixed My Horrible System for Canned Food Storage
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May 21, 2024
Our canned food storage situation earlier this year was abysmal... We discovered a few key things that have made it so much better ever since. Several months after fixing the issues with our old setup, we're still completely organized! This is the can organizer I use and definitely recommend. Shelf Reliance Cansolidator - https://amzn.to/3Lu60i4 Pantry Preparedness is a trademark of Income School LLC, an Idaho Limited Liability Company
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When it comes to food storage, there are some little mistakes you can make that can be really costly
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Here's a perfect example. Earlier this year, we had some cans of fruit that apparently went
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really bad and ruptured in our food storage. And they made a huge mess. See that black ooze in that
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picture? That was disgusting. And that was what was coming out of these cans that supposedly at
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one point contained actual food. Hello my friends and welcome back to Pantry Preparedness. Today I
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want to walk you through how you can avoid some really common and really simple mistakes that can
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end up being very costly. In the end, I want you to have good safe food storage that isn't going to
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go bad really fast and put your family's health at risk. And I also want you to be able to keep
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as much of your hard-earned money as possible, not waste it replacing food that just goes bad
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Earlier this year, our food storage was kind of a mess. We have, yes we have some of these can
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organizers that help you, you know, put cans in and then the first ones you put in come out. It's a
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first in first out or FIFO sort of a system. But we weren't using it very well and we had some issues
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with how it was placed that were causing problems. I'm going to talk about that just a little bit too
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But we also had just not enough of that for all of the food that we store. And so we had canned
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food stacked up all over the place. And the problem with having canned food that's stacked
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even if you put it in nice little little pallet boxes, you know what I'm talking about? You buy
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them at the store that way kind of in a sheet and then you just store them on your shelf really
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nicely, right? And stack them really well. I see this a lot. A lot of people will have that just
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on shelves in a food storage room or pantry. But you have that stacked up and that's great
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You can store a ton of canned food that way. Well, there's kind of two big problems that I see
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with that sort of a setup. If it's all you can do, it's all you can do. Just do it. It's fine
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But those two big problems are one, it's not a first in first out system. And it's hard to keep
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it as a first in first out system. What I mean by that is we buy canned food then we use that
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canned food over time. You should because most canned food only lasts a few years. And so what
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we should be doing is kind of rotating through that those supplies of food storage that we have
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But as you use that canned food, you should then be replenishing it with new canned food. And so
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the oldest stuff should be the stuff that you're grabbing. The problem is we go buy more from the
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store. We kind of fill in the spots that are vacant and sometimes oftentimes that's in the front. So
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then we end up having our newest food in the front and that is what we are most likely to grab
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when we're making dinner and we need a can. So you end up with cans of food that are sitting in the
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back for years and years and years. And if you're lucky they don't spoil and they don't rupture on
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you that's great. But still they go bad. And after several years of canned food in a can that's gone
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bad it's really hard to trust it because of the kind of bacteria that can grow inside of these
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cans. The second big issue I have with just stacking cans is it's often hard to tell how much you have
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left. In order to be able to stack cans several layers high we usually have to put them in these
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again those little cardboard mini pallets sort of things. And so it's hard to know how much you
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have underneath. Unless you're like neatly stacking things in nice rows and you're always taking from
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the top and then we're always replacing from the bottom that's one option. But unless you're really
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disciplined about that it's just hard to know always how much is left. But also again the first
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in first out thing it's kind of a bigger deal for me. So in order to solve those two problems I've
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decided to go with a first in first out system where you can literally put cans in from the top
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and they roll down and then they come out the bottom. And then you just grab the can from the
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bottom always and it will be replaced with the next one behind it. And as long as you put them
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in there in order when you buy them it will always be first in first out. There are times occasionally
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where I'll pull a can out and then end up not needing to use it and need to put it back. When I
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do that I just kind of gently push these back up and slide the can back into place in the bottom
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so that I maintain that first in first out. I never take an old can that I pulled out from the
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bottom and then just throw it back in the top unless it's like the only can left which does
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happen occasionally. The specific system I'm using is the can solidator system from self-reliance
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I'll link to it in the description. I have looked around at other systems and I haven't found
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anything else that I liked nearly as much except maybe one. And it's the one that my mother-in-law
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built herself and it basically works the same way with the slanted shelf so the cans roll down
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If you have a great storage room where you can get to your shelves from the front and the back
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and you're building it in yourself just building in some slanted shelves that you load from the back
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can work just as well and you could probably do it without sort of wasting as much space
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as these systems do. But these systems are intended to be able to be put into a shelf
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where there may be a wall behind it so you can just load a can in from the front
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and then take one out the bottom. But these systems aren't totally perfect. As you may have
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noticed in the very beginning my ruptured can was in one of these can solidator systems
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So what happened there? Well a couple of things. First of all we were incredibly disorganized and
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we weren't keeping up perfectly with our first in first out system. Part of the problem there was
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I didn't have enough slots to be able to have a unique slot for each individual different item
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And so there were different fruits that canned fruits that we were sharing us in the same spot
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right. So you might have fruit cocktail and peaches and a couple of other things all in
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the same slot. And so then the problem is you pull some peaches out the bottom but then next time
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you're like well I needed fruit cocktail. So you pull a couple peaches out the bottom grab the
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fruit cocktail and then if you don't shove those peaches back in from the bottom you're not keeping
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in that first in first out system. The other issue was we had these cans of things that we just don't
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use very often. And so these particular specific things that went bad I think it was like canned
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maybe sweet potatoes but whenever we do sweet potatoes or yams we do the big can. And so we
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had this little can right. And so it just sat in there and kept rotating through over and over and
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over again for probably a really long long long time. We also have to keep this food storage
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currently in our garage which is an ideal because of the way the temperature fluctuates it gets too
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hot and then it gets too cold in the winter and then it gets really hot again. And the way that
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temperature fluctuates over and over again it's just going to cause that can to eventually get
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get weaker. But also with the age of the can eventually it just got too weak and then it
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ruptured. In fact I think there were two cans in that shelf that ended up rupturing and just
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spilling out that black ooze all over the place. The good thing about that was it finally got us
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to do something about it. So what do we do? We pulled everything off the shelves. We put all
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the cans in groups by exactly what they were. So they were actually sorted in groups. So like all
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of the fruit cocktail was only with the fruit cocktail. And then we went through and we looked
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at the dates and we found that probably half of our canned food was expired which was very
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upsetting to have to throw away that much food. I don't want you to have to do this. That's why
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I'm sharing this with you right now. And then we went through and we just put them in order of how
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old they were so that we could put the oldest ones. And this was all based on expiration dates
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but that way the oldest ones we could put in very first. We then really cleaned off all the plastic
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of these consolidators. And then I replaced the shelving. So I mentioned there are some other
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problems. We were using some of these kind of standard shelves you can buy. They're a metal
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frame and then they come with wooden shelves. And they're supposed to be able to hold like two
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three, four hundred pounds per shelf. And maybe in total they can. The problem is those shelves
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are typically made from particle board and that particle board has a tendency to bow in the middle
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especially when you have something relatively heavy on it. And so all of these shelves were
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completely bowed in the middle. In order for these consolidators to work properly the walls of them
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need to be vertical. And so with the shelves bowing those walls started to kind of come in
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And so the other problem we'd have is that cans wouldn't roll very well. So some cans would sit
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in the top and just not roll down to the bottom very well. That was more of an annoyance than
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anything else. But I think it may have also contributed to the issue we had with the ruptured
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can. That shelf was completely not salvageable. It was disgusting with black botulism filled
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nasty ooze that was just infused into the particle board. What I did was I took all those particle
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board shelves from that shelving unit. I took them out. I kept the rest of them. Just got rid of the
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one nasty one. And I replaced them. I went to the store and I bought plywood. I wanted actual good
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plywood that wasn't just a bunch of little particles. I wanted it laminated plywood
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And I bought plywood that was just over half an inch thick. I think the number comes out to be
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like 23 30 seconds with the plywood. It doesn't even just do it in sixteenths or even eighths
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23 30 seconds was the thickness that I bought. And that was substantially more rigid. The metal frame
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is more than capable of holding up that sort of weight even with all these cans on it. So I replaced
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the shelves on that unit with this plywood. Then I reassembled the consolidator units and I went and
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I bought some more. So now I actually have four full shelves four feet wide from one end to the
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other completely filled with these consolidator units. So now I have a specific designated place
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for each separate item. This allows me to quickly and easily at a glance know what we're running out
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of. And it allows us to maintain that first in first out. So what do I do with some of those
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foods where I just don't use that many. Well it's pretty simple. I just don't fill those ones up
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completely. I know it's not as good a use of space. I'm an engineer and I'm all about optimization
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But in this case it's more important to me to optimize the functionality of it and ensure that
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I'm not storing too much of something that I just never use. And so when it comes to green chilies
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we use them but we just don't use them that much. So I don't fill up the whole thing full of them
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Whereas some of the other items that we use an awful lot of I have two full rows full of them
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so that I have plenty of stores. The next thing I did was because I use the next shelf over for a
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lot of our bottled food the stuff that we bottle ourselves and because again those were Boeing
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I decided that I was going to reuse my particle board. I was going to reuse the ones that I just
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took off of the first shelf. So what I did was I just stacked two together in one shelf spot
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And in order to keep the top one from sliding off I spread out wood glue on one side of one of them
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and I set the second one on top of it made sure it was really nice and like lined up perfectly
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And then I just put some weights on it and let it dry really well. So what I ended up with was
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half inch thick particle board instead of quarter inch thick particle board or whatever it was that
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they gave me. So I have two sheets laminated together and that's given me much more rigidity
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I also put them together so that the Boeing on the two kind of matched so they're arched together
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and then I put them so that they were bowed upward. So then when I set them back in the
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shelving unit and put heavy boxes full of bottles on them they kind of flattened them back out a
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little bit. And I'm just not getting the same Boeing I was and it's so much better. But that's
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my problem with those shelving units that we usually get. This is also from shelf reliance
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and it's a standing unit that just has the can roller system built into it. So there's no shelves
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it's just cans. And you can even set on some of these you can set the heights so that if you're
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like well on this row I'm going to do number 10 cans. But on this row I'm going to use these
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little bit bigger cans and on this row I'm going to use the normal size small cans the 12 ounces
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And that's just based on the diameter of the cans. And then you can set the vertical spacers
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so that the height of the can because some of the cans are this tall and some are this tall
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and some are only this tall. You set those vertical dividers based on those widths and then it's just
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an awesome system to be able to have your cans roll in roll out and it's amazing. Now when it
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comes to your not canned food obviously like ketchup bottles and stuff we're not going to be
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able to roll. And so for those having them just on a shelf makes complete sense. We have a space
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underneath on kind of the bottom shelf where we put a lot of that sort of stuff. And my sister-in-law's house they have shelves here where I mean you can see in this picture
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like ketchup bottles lined up. And with those you can still go with first in first out if you have
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them in a nice straight row then it's easy when you buy a couple new bottles to replace ones you've
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taken out of your store room. You just put them in the back slide everything forward no problem
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But it's important. Maintain first in first out. It's the best way to ensure that you waste the
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least amount of money on food storage that you don't actually use. And if you love food storage
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and preparedness stuff in general this channel is a place for you to come hang out. I hope you'll be
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my friend. I love preparedness and that's what we're all about here at Pantry Preparedness
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You might also go check out pantrypreparedness.com where I have all sorts of articles and free
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resources available to you all about preparedness because I want to help you and others like you to
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be more prepared for whatever it is life's going to throw at you. And I hope to see you in our
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