Freezer space, thawing and storing fresh food
Fresh and frozen dog food arrives on a delivery schedule rather than off a shelf, and that changes the household logistics more than it changes the feeding. Before the first box lands it is worth knowing how much room the format really takes.
Reviewed by Lucinda Woodford
Contributing reviewer, practical feeding and owner experienceIndependent scoringUpdated August 2026Not veterinary advice
This guide sticks to storage and handling. It is not veterinary advice: anything to do with your dog's health, weight or what should be in the bowl is a question for your vet.
Photography licensed for editorial use
Before the first delivery
How much freezer room a fresh subscription really needs
The number worth working out is not litres of capacity but how many flat-packed kilograms will sit alongside the food already in there.
Lyka is subscription-only and delivered direct, with single-protein recipes portioned to each dog after an onboarding questionnaire. Our index holds 6 of them, each as a 1kg bowl, the cheapest bowl at $8.95 and the rest at $9.95.
Our index estimates $2.68 to $2.98 a day for a mid-sized adult dog on those bowls, and how many 1kg bowls that becomes is set by the portion Lyka calculates at onboarding, so size the freezer against the delivery Lyka quotes rather than against a figure we work out for you. Prices are our editorial estimates.
Frozen raw arrives in larger units. Petzyo’s Raw Royalty Roo’s Clues kangaroo BARF patties come as a 5.4 kilogram pack of pre-portioned patties, estimated at $3.16 a day, and the listing itself notes that they need freezer space and a little thaw planning. A pack that size wants a shelf rather than a corner.
What our index holds, and what it does not
- We hold
- Pack size, price, and an editorial estimate of what a day of feeding a mid-sized adult dog costs.
- We do not hold
- How much any particular dog should be fed. Fresh portions are calculated per dog at onboarding, and the amount in the bowl is a question for the brand's own plan and for your vet.
So size the freezer against the delivery you are actually quoted, which is the only figure that describes your dog.
The failure mode
Rotating deliveries so nothing gets buried
The new box goes in on top, the older food slides to the back, and the oldest portions are the last ones found.
The fix is plain: unpack with the new delivery going underneath or behind, write the delivery date on anything that does not already carry one, and keep a single zone for dog food rather than letting it spread across three drawers.
The subscription is the other lever. Scratch and Petzyo both run flexible subscriptions and Lyka is subscription-only, so when a delivery is due and the freezer is still half full, push the next one out rather than force it in. Petzyo also allows dry kibble and raw patties on the one subscription, which is a practical way to cut the frozen share without changing brand.
“The oldest portion should be the easiest one to reach, and it is the one usually buried at the back.”
The daily job
Thawing ahead and portioning for the week
Thawing is a planning job rather than a task, and the pack decides how it is done.
A simple way to plan it is to move the next day's food from the freezer to the fridge the night before, in line with the defrost directions printed on the pack. Attaching that to something already fixed in the day, the evening walk or your own dinner, is what stops it being forgotten. Those directions are the authority for any given product, and they differ between brands.
Portioning is easier when the format has done it for you. Lyka bowls arrive portioned to the dog from the onboarding questionnaire and Petzyo's patties are pre-formed, so the unit out of the freezer is the decision already made. Anything that arrives loose is worth splitting on delivery day, while the box is open and the food is still frozen, rather than a fortnight later at six in the morning. Label containers with the date they went in.
The week, set up once
- Read the defrost directions on the pack at the first delivery, not at the first missed meal
- Split anything that arrives loose on delivery day, while it is still frozen
- Label every container with the date it went in
- Attach the nightly move from freezer to fridge to something already fixed in the day
The easier problem
Keeping kibble sealed and dry
Dry food is simpler to store, though the bag sizes in our index cover a long range.
Brands we hold at that size
Pack size
- Prime100, Black & Gold, Scratch and Petzyo8kg
- Meals for Mutts9kg
- Hill's Science Diet, Providore and The Nosh Project12kg
- Ivory Coat13kg
- Black Hawk, SavourLife, Royal Canin and Leaps & Bounds15kg
- SavourLife, ProBalance, Woofin' Good!, Baxter's and Julius18kg
- Black Hawk and Meals for Mutts20kg
Where the price per kilogram lands best is what the price index sets out, and the big bag is also the bag hardest to find a home for.
Keep the food in its own bag rather than tipping it loose, and put the bag inside the storage bin. The bag carries the batch code and the best before date, and both are worth keeping with the food. Roll the top down and clip it, store it off the floor and out of direct sun, and keep the scoop out of the bag between meals.
Air-dried packs such as Frontier Pets and ZIWI Peak, both one kilogram in our index, are stored to the directions printed on their own packs.
Photography licensed for editorial use
The weeks you are away
Travel, kennels and someone else's morning
Frozen food and a car boot are a poor combination, and a boarding kennel may not have room in its freezer for a week of someone else's meals.
Shelf-stable formats are the ones that travel. Frontier Pets is described in our index as a complete air-dried diet that keeps in the pantry rather than the freezer. ZIWI Peak is the other air-dried brand in our index, and its packs carry their own storage directions.
Prime100’s SLR single-protein roll is a 2 kilogram format in our index, which records the size and the price rather than how the roll is stored, so read the storage directions printed on the roll before you pack it.
For a kennel stay or a house sitter, portion into individual labelled bags, one bag per meal, with the dog's name and the date on each. That removes the guesswork from someone else's morning. Time the subscription around the trip as well, bringing a delivery forward or pausing it so a box does not land on the doorstep the day after you leave.
Packing for someone else
- One labelled bag per meal, with the dog's name and the date
- The pack, or a photograph of it, so the directions travel with the food
- A written note of when the dog eats, not just how much
- A delivery brought forward or paused so nothing lands while the house is empty
The fresh versus kibble comparison is the place to weigh formats before committing to one.
Scaling up
What changes when the dog is a large one
Every cost per day figure in our index assumes a mid-sized adult dog of around 15 kilograms, and the storage requirement moves with the dog.
The same box, half the time
A considerably larger dog works through the same delivery faster, so the box that covered a month covers a fortnight. Formats that look tidy on a small dog are the ones that turn awkward: one kilogram air-dried packs and one kilogram fresh bowls are easy in small numbers and become a stacking exercise once the daily portion doubles.
The options, and their limit
The options are a larger kibble bag, a second freezer, or splitting the food across formats so less of it needs cold storage. Whether a split suits your dog is a question for your vet rather than for this guide.
The dog food finder, our best dog food guide and why ingredients matter compare formats and panels on the same terms.
Storage and freezer FAQs
4 questions
It depends on the daily portion and the delivery interval rather than the brand. Lyka bowls are one kilogram each in our index, and the number of them in a delivery comes from the portion Lyka sets at onboarding, so take that figure from your own order rather than from us. Petzyo's 5.4 kilogram patty pack wants a shelf. Measure the space before the first order, not after it arrives.
Often yes, by taking shorter delivery intervals so less food is in the house at once, and by clearing one dedicated drawer rather than scattering portions. If the space genuinely is not there, air-dried is the alternative format: our index describes Frontier Pets as a complete air-dried diet that sits in the pantry rather than the freezer, and for any other air-dried pack, ZIWI Peak included, the directions on the pack are the ones to follow.
Follow the defrost directions printed on the pack. Where those directions allow it, moving the portion from the freezer to the fridge the night before is the simplest way to fit thawing into the day. Storage and defrost directions vary between brands, so read them once at the first delivery. If a portion has not thawed in time, the pack directions are the place to check what to do next.
Leave the food in its own bag and put the whole bag inside the storage bin, rather than tipping the kibble loose. The bag keeps the batch code and the best before date with the food. Roll and clip the top after each meal, store it off the floor and out of direct sun, and keep the scoop outside the bag.
Who wrote this
This guide is by Lucinda Woodford, a contributing reviewer on practical feeding and owner experience, and a dog walker who spends a great deal of time with dogs of different ages, energy levels and routines. She holds no veterinary or nutrition qualification. Nothing here is a health claim and it is not veterinary advice: anything to do with your dog's health, weight or what should be in the bowl is a question for your vet.