Summer Storage: Raw Pet Food in Denver Heat
Denver summers are mostly mild — high altitude keeps things cooler than people from sea level expect — but we get our share of 90°F+ days, surprise afternoon thunderstorms, and the occasional power flicker that sends the whole block dark for a few hours. Cold-chain integrity is something to think about between roughly mid-June and early September. The good news: our delivery model and packaging are built around exactly these conditions, so most of what you need to do is "nothing different."
Here's what to know for the warm months.
Delivery day in summer
The cold chain doesn't break on our end — we run a refrigerated route truck, and the box never sits in the truck warmer than ~38°F. The handoff from porch to your fridge is the only window where temperature can drift, and we've designed for that:
- Boxes are insulated for ~6 hours of porch time at 85°F. That's plenty for a normal workday — your box stays cold-chain-safe whether you're home or not.
- If you're going to be out for longer than 6 hours, leave a cooler with an ice pack at the door for backup. We'll set the box inside the cooler if it's available.
- For really hot days (95°F+), you can leave a note in your delivery instructions asking us to text you when we drop, so you can ask a neighbor to bring it inside. We're happy to do that.
If you're ever uncertain whether a box arrived in good condition — package noticeably warm to the touch, ice packs fully thawed, food showing signs of soft thaw — message us with a photo. We replace it. No questions, no judgment.
Power outages and brown-outs
Denver power is usually reliable, but summer thunderstorms can take down a transformer for an afternoon. Two things to know:
- Most frozen raw is safe through a 24-hour outage if the freezer stays closed. The temperature rises slowly inside an unopened freezer, and food that's still partially frozen at the end of the outage is still safe to refreeze.
- After 48 hours, throw out anything that's fully thawed to room temperature. It's not worth the risk.
A useful habit: keep a quick list (sharpie on the freezer door is fine) of what's currently inside. After an outage, that list helps you make fast decisions about what to keep, what to use first, and what to toss.
Road trips and overnight travel
Bringing your pet's food on a trip is more straightforward than you might think:
- Use the cooler from the Bowls & Accessories add-on. Pre-freeze the daily portion in its container so it acts as its own ice pack.
- Plan to refrigerate within 24 hours. A pre-frozen portion in a good cooler is fine for a 6-8 hour drive; longer than that and you want to swap to an actual hotel-room fridge by the next morning.
- Don't pack a full week's food in a cooler for a road trip. It's not built for that. If you're going to be gone longer than 3 days, ship a small interim delivery to your destination (we can coordinate that for Front Range trips) or have a friend cat-sit with their own freezer.
Pre-vacation planning
Going out of town for more than a week? You've got two clean options:
- Pause your subscription from your account. /account/subscription → Pause for the duration. Resumes automatically when you're back.
- Have a friend take the delivery. We don't care who's at the door, as long as someone's there to put it in the freezer. Forward your delivery confirmation, give your friend the address.
Skip is also fine if you only need to miss one box and don't want to commit to a pause window. Skip just one delivery from the orders page and the next one ships normally on schedule.
A note on summer altitude
A small thing most newcomers don't think about: at 5,280 feet, water boils at 203°F instead of 212°F, and air is drier. This affects food storage almost not at all (freezers don't care), but if you've moved here from sea level, expect raw food to thaw slightly faster on the counter than you're used to. Not enough to change the rules — just enough that you'll notice the difference.