First-in-first-out rotation works only when the storage is built so that the oldest food is the easiest to reach: label every container with its date, load new stock behind or below old, and divide bulk stores into dated sections that are emptied in order. Where a food is more perishable than its neighbours, use it first whatever its date.
A FIFO system is the arrangement of labels, shelves and bins that makes people use the oldest stored food first.
Make The Easy Thing The Right Thing
People take what is nearest. Without a design for it, the newest additions sit at the front and are used, while the oldest slide to the back and spoil. The carrier says: label everything with a date, eat the oldest first. The Phase 2 guide builds on this (FIFO Rotation); here are the points that matter at community scale.
Four Designs
1. Dated labels. Mark every jar, sack and crate with the date of storage or preserving. Use methods that survive a cellar: carved wood tags, chalk marks on clay, tags tied to the handle. Put the date on the container, not the shelf.
2. Shelves that load from the back. New jars go to the back of the shelf and daily draws come from the front. A shelf that sloped so jars roll forward does it automatically.
3. Two-section bulk bins. Divide the grain bin with a removable divider. Fill section A completely first; draw only from section A; when the next harvest comes, fill section B; when A is empty, switch. Refill A from the next season. Or use a bin with a port at the bottom front and load from the top, so the oldest grain is always at the exit (Grain Storage).
4. Dated sections for roots. Divide the cellar into bins labelled with the harvest date. Open the earliest bin and finish it before starting the next (Root Cellar Loading Plan).
When FIFO Is Not The Right Rule
- More perishable first. A later-stored soft fruit goes before an earlier-stored hard cabbage.
- Damaged first. Bruised and cracked produce is used before sound produce.
- Seed is not food. Seed stock sits outside the rotation and is protected from the kitchen (Community Seed Bank Management).
- Reserve stock. Emergency grain, which the buffer plan requires, is rotated on its own slower schedule and replaced from the new crop (Buffer for Crop Failure and Pests).
Worked Example: A Two-Section Bin
A bin is divided into two sections of 500 kg each, and the household draws 20 kg a week (invented numbers to show the sums). Each section lasts 500 ÷ 20 = 25 weeks, and both together last 1,000 ÷ 20 = 50 weeks. Draw only from section A for the first 25 weeks, then switch to section B for the next 25. If the next harvest is 40 weeks away, the bin lasts with 50 − 40 = 10 weeks, or 200 kg, to spare. If it is 52 weeks away, the bin is 52 − 50 = 2 weeks, or 40 kg, short, which is known in week one and can be handled by a small saving each week. After the harvest, refill the empty section. At every moment the old grain is in the section being drawn and the new grain in the other.
Common Mistakes
- New jars slid to the front. The old ones sit and spoil.
- A date on the shelf, not the jar.
- Mixing old and new grain in one heap. You can no longer say which is which.
- FIFO applied to unlike foods. Rank by spoilage across crops.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Monthly Inventory Checks — verifying the rotation works
- Combine with: Storage Rotation & Inventory — the wider routine