How To Easily Declutter Your Canned Food Pantry Items

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When stored correctly, unopened canned food retains its quality for an infamously long time, making it all too easy to stock your pantry with more and more canned goods — that is, until you run out of space, and it's time to declutter. Canned foods aren't immune to spoilage, and for the freshest ingredients, lowest amount of food waste, and least-daunting decluttering, it's a good idea to keep an eye on the "best by" dates printed on each can. To easily remove cans that are close to or past expiration, take a cue from the food service industry by following what's known as the FIFO method.  

The FIFO acronym means "First In First Out," and if you've ever worked in a restaurant, the system is among the first things that trainers teach new hires. When restocking a pantry or fridge, the newer product is placed behind the existing, older items. This way, when an employee in a hurry reaches in to grab what they need, they will automatically be grabbing the item that needs to be used-up in the most timely fashion. To drive the message home, we recommend labeling each individual can with a wide strip of Premium Painters Tape, written with its expiration date in bold black marker. 

Tape-labelling each can in the pantry is a strategy that will likely also look familiar to food service workers. Sauces, prepped veggies, and more often get stored in clear airtight tubs in professional kitchens, labelled only with a revolving door of masking-tape-labels that indicate what date the product was batched. At home, dating each can in the pantry creates an easily visible window of freshness which can also help with menu planning and grocery shopping list-making. Then, when you do put a new load of groceries away, tape-labelling is an extra step that can make a big difference — and it only takes a few extra seconds per can. 

While the stakes are lower (and the pace is slower) in home kitchens versus professional kitchens, the same sentiment behind the FIFO method applies. A little extra thoughtfulness during the pantry-stocking step helps eliminate stress when you're actively cooking a meal and already have enough moving parts to juggle — thereby increasing the likeliness that you'll actually grab the oldest canned item in the lot. The labelling technique, along with 33 other pantry storage hacks, helps maintain a well-organized pantry with the freshest ingredients, without having to take every item out and rearrange them.