Four Stella products, four completely different storage rules. If you feed more than one of their lines, which is common once a dog takes to the brand, it is worth knowing which is which before something gets left in the wrong place.
Freeze-dried first, because it is the easiest. Shelf stable, no refrigeration, no prep. Press the air out and close the zipper. The only real enemy is a damp warm spot, and most of us have one of those, usually attached to the house and containing a car. A garage in a Monmouth County October swings a long way between morning and afternoon and holds moisture after the air outside has dried. Keep the bag on a pantry shelf inside instead.
Frozen raw is pickup and local delivery only, so it comes home cold and goes straight into the freezer. Nothing clever required.
Bone broth is where people slip. The pouches are fine on the shelf closed, but once opened they need refrigerating and Stella gives a ten day window. They come in a three pack, which is exactly the setup for opening one and leaving the other two beside the freeze-dried, then treating all three the same way a week later. Write the open date on the pouch with a marker. It is the single most useful habit in this whole article.
FreshMade needs the most attention, and it is worth spelling out because it does not behave like anything else in the range.
It is gently cooked rather than raw, sous-vide and then flash frozen, so it lives in the freezer. Thawing happens in the refrigerator, in the original packaging, and Stella says to allow twenty-four to thirty-six hours. That is not a number you can shortcut on a Tuesday evening when dinner is now. Once thawed, their instruction is to cut the pouch along three sides, tip the food and the broth into a resealable container, and mix it with a fork so the broth is distributed rather than sitting in one corner. From there you have five days, refrigerated and sealed. Portion out of the container daily. The food is genuinely juicy, which is pleasant for the dog and messy for you if you open the pouch over a countertop rather than a bowl.
One rule that applies to everything above. Do not decant a food into a plastic bin and throw the bag away. The bag has the lot code, the date code, and the feeding chart printed on it, and the day you need any of those is the day you will not have them. If a bin is how you store things, put the whole bag inside it.
Our opinion on the fancy airtight containers people ask about: largely unnecessary for freeze-dried. The bag zips. A clip works. Spend the money on food.
One more small thing. If you buy a bag of Wild Weenies or any treat and leave it in the car, remember that a closed car in October still gets warm in afternoon sun. Treats ride inside with you.
Go find whichever bag or pouch you opened most recently and put the date on it. Two seconds, and it answers a question you will definitely have later.