We've been using this milk instead of buying milk that needs to be refrigerated, since the Y2K scare in 1999. Since it is a smaller amount that a whole carton of fresh milk, like a quart or gallon, we usually use it within one day for all our milk needs, so no refrigeration is necessary. Sometimes there might be some leftover milk that we use the next day. We will refrigerate this, but possibly, if the weather is cold enough, and the inside of the house is cool, an open unrefrigerated can may last until the next day without spoiling. And with the fresh milk, we would always have milk that spoiled in the refrigerator, because we couldn't use all of it fast enough. So having the canned milk has also saved us a lot of money that we wasted on spoiled milk we couldn't use and had to throw away.