Carlos
There was a large donation by the local animal control society of soft cat food for volunteers to feed stray cats. It has a "sell by" date of 3-28-08
Janetta
I managed to dig up some info for you. Sell by date does not mean that the food is officially expired. It just means that the food does not provide the nutrition as stated in the Guaranteed Analysis. The ‘best’ nutrition for the pet has expired but the food is still ‘good’. While some ingredients in the food might still provide adequate nutrition – other ingredients have faded over time. Lengthy storage decreases the activity and potency of many vitamins and increases the likelihood that fats have become rancid. So, the best way to test if the food is still acceptable to be fed to the cats is doing the sniff test. I am sure you are aware what rancid smell, smells like. If it gives your a *whiff!*, dump them. Its really not a good idea to feed expired products for the very reason explained above. The food might still appear tasty to the cats but it is lack of all the essential nutrition.
Jannie
No one is going to tell you to feed expired food - it isnt safe. When I go through inventory, I throw out anything expired... unless its a special formula, and then we donate it to the shelter, or I take it home and feed it (dental diets). If it hasnt been exposed to extreme temperature and seems intact, I would go ahead and open it up and see what it looks like/smells like. I know our shelter feeds what we give them, and havent had any problems. Im kicking myself for answering this question! lol... I guess Friskies and some others do not even have expiration dates - they figure anything in a can will be OK until opened. On the other hand, my gut reaction is that Im a little grossed out.
Elane
That is way expired food
Damian
Only a couple of weeks, tops. Sell by is like the one week mark before it gets rotten. I do not by any means suggest feeding that food, especially if its soft food because with all the liquids itd be VERY easy for it to quickly get rotten, to any cats. It could potentially poison their systems since its 4 months past the sell by date. Thats a loong time and that food is no longer good to eat!
Adele
Just open up the can and sniff it and look at it. Its canned so canned food can last really long. It might not be as tasty or nutritious, but its probably still okay. Obviously if it looks green, grey, has anything growing on it or is dried out or smells funny, dont feed it to them. It is really really old, because to be honest the canned food I buy will have a sell by date of over a year from now on it... but it still should be fine. I used to work at a grocery store and my mom has worked at the same store for a long time, and sell by dates are usually useless except on things like milk, eggs cheese or meats. If its canned or in a box, it can last much longer then the sell by date.