If you buy pet food in bulk (1-10 pounds, depending on the kind and number of pets) how long do you expect it to stay fresh? And what does fresh mean?
Fresh means that the pet food didn’t spoil. But is it still nutritious? This really depends on the way you store your pet’s food and how the manufacturer cared for their ingredients and products. Foods and nutrients deteriorate faster at higher temperatures and when they are exposed to oxygen, humidity and light. Low temperatures such as those in the fridge slow down the degradation of nutrients.
A pet food manufacturer’s ‘best before date’ is a safe estimation on how long the product is still OK to eat. However, if the best before date is months or sometimes even years, and no recommendation is given and followed to store the food at lower than room temperatures and out of light and humidity, you can bet that the food will not be nutritious long before you feed the last of it to your pet.
Manufacturers try to extend shelf life and prevent spoilage of pet foods by a number of methods, including the addition of artificial or natural preservatives (the natural ones seem to be less effective), by adding allowed insecticides, or by irradiating foods. Although such pet foods may not smell or look spoilt, they actually may be, even though you can’t recognize it.
Irradiation (which is a method that is prohibited for certified organic pet foods) is a good example. Radiation is used to prevent bacterial growth in many human and pet foods, as well as their ingredients (e.g., meats, seafood, or produce). However, the used radiation doses don’t appear to effectively prevent growth of really harmful bacteria like Clostridium botulinum (which can cause botulism). Irradiation has also been shown to destroy vitamins and enzymes, so that, even though a manufacturer may add all AAFCO recommended nutrients to begin with, many of these nutrients will be destroyed and - at best- become unusable for your pet. The food may still look fresh, though! Australia has recently prohibited the irradiation of all cat foods after they suspected that cats died after consuming such foods.
Organic certification assures that (human and) pet foods aren’t irradiated and that only non-synthetic and safe preservatives are used. Since both certified organic ingredients and certified organic pet foods can’t be treated with highly toxic fungicides or pesticides which would prevent pest infestation, organic pet foods may be more susceptible to a ‘moth infestation’ if they are not stored properly. It has been shown that both birds and rats choose organic food over conventional, non-organic food. I bet moths and other insects also know instinctively what is safer and healthier to eat!
Most dry pet foods have been sitting on shelves in a warehouse for weeks or months before it comes on your pet supply store’s shelves or before you discover it in an online store. At Onesta Organics we don’t overproduce our certified organic pet food products but store them and the ingredients we use in refrigerators or freezers until we sell or use them. We have not found a single other pet food manufacturer that can claim that they put the same care into the storage of their ingredients and products.
The best way for customers to avoid pests and nutrient loss in dry pet food is to store the food in airtight containers away from light, protected from humidity, and at temperatures lower than room temperature.