FREE Canning Inventory Printable: For Beginner’s

Learn how to organize and maintain an efficient canning inventory for year-round food preservation with our free canning inventory printable.

What Is Canning Inventory?

Canning inventory is the practice of keeping track of canned food items in stock. It involves maintaining a record of various canned goods, such as fruits, vegetables, meats, and preserves that you have in your pantry or storage.

Canning inventory is essential for those who participate in home canning or preserving food. It allows you to efficiently keeep up with your supplies and ensure you have enough to last throughout the year. By having an organized inventory, you can easily keep track of what you have on hand and plan future canning projects as needed.

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Importance Of Keeping and Maintaining a Canning Inventory

Keeping up with your canning inventory is extremely important so you don’t over or under can. I like to think of it as going to the grocery store. When I go, I try not to buy more than we will need. But if you underbuy then it can be a major inconvenience. So I want to make sure I can just enough that my family will eat the food within a reasonable amount of time.

You don’t want to can too much because it is recommended by the National Center for Home Food Preservation that all food be eaten within one year. Home canned food after one year slowly begins to lose nutritional value. This doesn’t mean it is bad or can’t be eaten it just means that it is losing nutritional value. We have over-canned in the past and eaten green beans that were canned over 3 years ago. They still tasted and looked great but they probably contained less nutritional value than if we would have eaten them within a year.

I don’t keep up with it to an exact but at all times I do like to have a pretty good idea of how much I have left in the pantry. It is also important to ensure your canned food is being cycled through properly. The first in first out method works great so it is important to make sure you date all of your canned food.

Canning Inventory Checklist

Having a canning inventory checklist is also really important. You can either do this with a digital checklist or you can do it with our free checklist.

I created the inventory checklist with the exact needs of my pantry in mind. I wanted it to include the canning date, food name, quantity as well as the jar size. It includes canning jar sizes from half gallon to half pint. I do a lot of vacuum canning in half gallon jars and wanted to keep track of all my canning inventory in one place.

You can get your FREE printable canning inventory list by clicking the button below.

How To Use Canning Inventory

I follow each column and write in the information. Start by writing the date that you canned your food, then what you canned, and how many. If you canned using all quarts then I write the number I canned in the quantity column and add a checkmark under quart. But if you canned some quart and some pint then I write how many of each in each column.

In conclusion, having a canning inventory checklist is crucial for anyone involved in home canning. It not only helps to keep track of the various items in stock but also ensures that the process remains organized and efficient. By regularly reviewing and updating the checklist, you can avoid running out of essential supplies or wasting time and effort on unnecessary canning. Additionally, this checklist serves as a helpful tool for planning future canning projects and identifying any trends or patterns in consumption.

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