Can Storage Racks For The Disorganized Pantry
When it comes to storing survival food, things can get cluttered fast.
Stacking cans of food on the ground or makeshift shelves makes for a disorganized mess.
Not only does it look terrible and take up lots of space, but it also compromises your survival food supplies.
Good organization is key to preparedness and survival!
How can you expect to make it through a widespread emergency if you can’t quickly find your supplies because it’s so mixed up?
Can you expect to treat a nasty wound if all your first aid supplies are floating around haphazardly?
How would you defend yourself if your survival weapons were strewn about, and your ammunition was scattered and jumbled up?
You couldn’t.
You can have all the best survival gear money can buy, a massive stockpile of survival food, but you won’t make it if it’s heaped in a messy pile.
That is why it’s so important to keep all your essential survival resources organized.
When it comes to survival food, canned food has been a staple for decades. Almost any kind of food can be canned, it lasts a long time, and it’s packed with both nutrients and calories.
Plus, it is cheap and easy to store.
But canned goods can take up a lot of space, especially when you’re stocking enough to get you through a catastrophic survival event.
The solution? Can Storage Racks.
It’s an easy, cost-effective, organized method for storing as many canned goods as possible in the smallest possible space.
So today I’m going to share everything I know about can storage racks, specifically:
- Why You Should Store Your Canned Goods On A Rack
- Understanding How The “First In-First Out” Strategy Works
- 5 Best Can Storage Racks On The Market Today
- Keeping Track Of Your Cans and Their Expiration Dates
**Note: If you just want our top recommendations, feel free to SKIP AHEAD HERE.
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WHY YOU SHOULD STORE YOUR CANNED GOODS ON A RACK
Obviously, keeping your pantry well organized is the top reason to use a can storage rack system.
But it certainly isn’t the only one:
1. Can storage racks keep cans off of the ground?
Keeping your food off the ground is a basic rule of storing food – even if it’s in a can.
Vermin, floods, and accidents can all compromise your survival supplies down there. Keeping food off the floor helps to keep it dry and vermin are less likely to create a hidden snack bar if food is up on shelves.
2. Can racks make it easy to keep track of things?
Most can storage racks are designed so you can easily check “expiration dates”.
But they also give you a quick visual reference for how much canned food you have left.
You can see when you are running out of green beans or corn, and restock well before your run out.
Plus, if you decide to get a “First In First Out” (FIFO) racking system, you’ll guarantee to use your oldest cans first (more on FIFO can storage below).
3. When they are on a rack, they are out of the way.
Keeping your cans stored on racks ensures they’re out of the way and not creating trip hazards.
If they end up on the floor, they can make for a serious trip hazard. And if they’re carelessly placed on a high shelf, they can make for a falling hazard.
But if they are safely stored on a rack that’s engineered to hold them right, they are safe and sound (and so are you).
4. With a rack, you can fit more cans in a smaller space.
This hearkens back to “good organization practices”. With a canned goods storage rack, you’ll be able to fit more cans in the pantry than if you just pile them up on your shelves.
This also saves you space in your storage area to fit more supplies besides cans.
As A Way To Introduce You To Skilled Survival, We're Giving Away Our Family First Food Planning Guide. Click Here To Get Your FREE Copy Of It.
UNDERSTANDING HOW THE “FIRST-IN FIRST OUT” STRATEGY WORKS
One of the most frustrating and wasteful things you can do when you begin stockpile food for an emergency is to find your food has gone bad. And while “expiration dates” and “best by dates” are a myth (especially with canned goods), it will eventually go bad if left unused for a long enough period of time.
That’s where stockpile rotation and tracking come into play. If you plan to stockpile a lot of food for a future emergency, you have to find a system to rotate your perishable foods.
So to protect your food stash investment, we recommend you get FIFO can storage racks.
First In First Out racks are designed so you can remove older canned goods first, and be able to add newer cans without having to reorganized everything.
With regular canned food storage racks, when you add new canned goods to the front of the rack (because it’s quicker and easier) older cans get left stuck in the back – forgotten about and getting older by the day.
FIFO can storage racks fix this problem.
They’re designed so when new cans are added to an upper row, while old cans are removed from a lower row. So as you remove cans, the entire inventory of cans shifts to always present the oldest can for use first.
Stockpile rotation is built into the design – genius!
Seriously, if you’re getting prepared and have a choice between two can food storage racks and one is a FIFO rack and one is not, go with the FIFO rack every time.
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5 BEST CAN STORAGE RACKS ON THE MARKET TODAY
There are a lot of canned storage racks out there.
Some are big; some are small, so you must have an idea of how much food you want to store before you buy.
Here’s a list of some of the highest-rated can storage racks we could find:
1 – DecoBros Supreme Stackable Can Rack Storage (not FIFO)
These are very popular when it comes to can storage racks, for several reasons.
First, you can buy as many as you need or as many as you can fit in your storage space and simply stack them one on top of another.
Each one can hold up to 36 cans, and the rack is built so that when you pull one can out, the next rolls into place to replace it.
It’s made from a heavy gauge stainless steel. So this device is durable and requires minimal set-up.
And at 6.2 pounds, it’s the lightest; most compact can storage rack on this list.
All that, in combination with the affordability of this rack, makes it one of your best options.
However, the biggest minus is it’s not a FIFO can storage rack.
2 – FIFO Can Tracker
These are my favorite when it comes to can storage. It’s a device is similar to the DecoBros can storage rack, but it’s a little bigger and better.
This one can hold up to 54 cans of food, and is even lighter, at only 4 pounds, 15 ounces.
The only slight downside is it’s made from plastic and more susceptible to damage.
It also isn’t as stackable as some of the other options for the same reason.
But this one’s a FIFO can storage system!
Watch this short video review to see how these can work for you.
3 – SimpleHouseware Stackable Can Rack (not FIFO)
This canned goods storage rack can store up to 36 cans.
One nice feature of this rack is it includes 6 adjustable dividers to accommodate different can sizes.
It’s a sturdy rack once assembled and has a chrome finish to prevent rusting.
Again, this one is not FIFO so you have to remove older cans in order to place new cans behind it – except for the top shelf, of course.
4 – Organize It All Can Goods Rack (not FIFO)
These racks are small and simple but effective. They have a slanted design to ensure the cans will roll to the front of the rack when you remove one.
It includes small rubbers stoppers at the feet of the rack to prevent slipping.
The biggest downside to this rack system is it’s not first in first out unless you have access to the backside of the rack.
So if that’s important to your canned food stockpiling plan, pass on this rack and get a FIFO one instead.
5 – FIFO Can Rack 200
The biggest option on this list, this can rack storage system can hold up to 200 cans at one time!
It’s designed with adjustable spacers to fit different sizes of cans.
The FIFO Can Rack is made with a “first-in, first-out” system which again, allows you to easily rotate through your older cans first.
So if you’ve got the space, place one of these units on top of another to increase your can storage capacity to 400 cans!
Here’s a video review of the FIFO Can Rack 72 (which is a slightly smaller version of this same can rack storage system):
As A Way To Introduce You To Skilled Survival, We're Giving Away Our Family First Food Planning Guide. Click Here To Get Your FREE Copy Of It.
KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR CANS AND THEIR EXPIRATION DATES
Honestly, there isn’t much in the way of maintenance when it comes to these things.
They don’t have a whole lot of moving parts, so you don’t have to worry about changing out the oil, charging batteries, etc.
What is helpful, though, is to keep a log of what you have, what you need, and when your food goes bad.
I recommend this for all survival food storage spaces:
Keep a clipboard hanging in your pantry, or even on the can storage rack itself. That way you can keep track of what buy when you bought it, and when it will expire.
This is an easy way to make sure that your supplies stay fresh at all times. It’s also the best method for making sure you never run out.
You can log what you buy and what you use, and make a quick list of what you need at the store to restock your canned good cache.
This way you avoid expired foods, you avoid running out of food in an emergency. By keeping a shopping list of what you need, you make it hard for yourself to stock up on too much of one thing.
Canned baby corn is good, but if you don’t want to accidentally end up with 1000 cans of it.
If you do, you’re going to be on a strict baby corn diet when the IT hits the fan, and that will get very old very quickly.
FINAL WORD
Maintaining a healthy supply of canned goods is a smart step towards preparation. But it won’t do you much good if your can cache is haphazardly stored and disorganized.
That’s why buying a can storage rack is vital to the practice of storing food.
- It offers you a compact way to store cans in a small space.
- It makes it easy to keep track of what you have and when it expires.
- And it grants you fast access to the food you need when you need it fast.
You don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for an industrial-kitchen sized can rack. A smaller scaleable setup will work just fine as well.
But it’s critical to have the right can storage rack to protect your canned good for many years to come.
I hear so many stories from our readers about how their canned goods are decades old and their worried about whether they are still good or not.
But if you rotate them properly over the years by keeping them organized and rotate them properly this fate can be avoided.
So do yourself a favor today to avoid wasting your can food stash due to poor organization.
Will Brendza
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dmwalsh568 says
A few years back I bought a customized Harvest 72 from ThriveLife. It’s like a double-sized FIFO Can Rack, but I was able to order mine with lots of smaller dividers to store pantry cans, soup cans and tuna cans. Not sure if they are still as customizable, but its a great system and I’m glad I have one. And since it’s a metal rack for the corners and cross-pieces I was able to put labels on chunks of magnetic roll by each slot. This way I can tell which row of tuna, ravioli, green beans, etc is oldest and which is newest without looking at the cans themselves. And if I adjust the mix I’m storing then I can move the labels around easily. I just used a label maker and bought a big roll of 1/2″ magnetic strip (the kind you can cut with scissors.) Already had the label maker for other purposes, so it was just buying the strip really.
Thanks for a great article!