Cans last (almost) forever. High nutrient food in packaging that preserves it. A surge of can donations in 2019 can be used in a donation slump that occurs in 2025.
Also, as I've noted in a separate comment, the food banks themselves often sit outside grocery stores with shopping lists that can be comprised of 80% cans.
If they didn't want that food and would prefer money, it'd be a lot easier to ask for that.
That leads me to think that they do want the food, but also that you're probably correct in thinking that people aren't likely to donate at all if it's not food directly.
Please do not donate food that is past its marked best by date. You're wasting everyone's time and effort.
Best-by and sell-by dates are not a food safety date.
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/fsis-content/inter...
Exactly this. Properly canned (or otherwise preserved via cooking in a sealed vessel) food effectively has no end date, so long as the seal remains intact. It will taste largely the same (barring leached minerals or otherwise from the vessel), unlike frozen food.
I've certainly had some expired, but not especially old, cans pop. Took me a while to notice them, too (gross). The item was brand-name pureed tomatoes, stored in an environment that was probably warmer than it should have been (a cabinet above a refrigerator). I doubt there was anything wrong with the manufacture of those cans, I think they opened up because of their age, the temperature of their storage and the fact that the item inside was a bit acidic.
Truthfully, I don't know if inspecting cans for damage is really much more difficult than just checking the expiry date on the can. For a food bank it's undoubtedly a bit of a pain either way, compared to rolling in a pallet of new cans...
It'd be interesting to know how they make that determination. The food bank around here tells people not to donate expired items (and has once or twice shared photos of the truly ancient stuff people sometimes donate) but it just occurred to me that I don't know whether they automatically throw that stuff away, evaluate everything individually, or what.
If the canned food’s sell/best by was last month and it was pulled from channel because of that, it’s obviously perfectly safe.
I can see why those same charities might institute a rule about no expired goods from the general public, however.
Sure. Where are you storing the cans in the interim? Who is paying for that warehouse space? Wouldn't it make more sense to just receive monetary donations which can be stored for free and converted into food when needed?