Freezer started thawing - do I need to get rid of everything?

[DK123]

I'm so upset - my freezer is full of stuff I batch cooked (like bolognese and lasagnas) i think it went off when there was a very brief power cut a couple of nights ago. I opened the door and it was totally not frosty looking like normal and although the stuff was still very cold, it had defrosted (eg the frozen veg was soft rather than in frozen lumps).

I don't want to throw everything out, there's so much stuff I made in there.

Can anyone tell me what they think I should do?!

Is it working again? How frozen is the other stuff?

I think the veg will be fine , can you put the meat stuff in the fridge and eat over next couple of days ? Is the freezer in a cold garage ?

It's back on and working and already re-frozen everything. I put it straight back on as soon as I noticed so I could then decide what to do.

Do you know how long it might have been off for? I imagine the larger cooked items wouldn't have defrosted as much as the veg especially if the door was shut. I'd just heat items thoroughly before eating

It will be fine if it was still frosty. The quality may be a bit off, but it won't poison you.

I would just pretend it hadn't happened apart from making really sure things are heated through for just a bit longer than usual. I may have survived this happening a couple of times.

Thank you! I'm so relieved. I had made so many things to freeze as I was being really careful with budgeting and I was so upset thinking I might have to bin it all.

Everything was very cold, like in a cold fridge when I opened the door.

I think it could have been off for a maximum of 48 hours.

I was hoping that re freezing might kill any bacteria

The bag of frozen berries has got all over everything so I'm going to have to clean that up now!

Refreezing won't have killed any bacteria. Freezing just slows the rate of multiplication right down. Just use the food up as if it has a shorter best before date now. The texture of the veg may have deteriorated from damage by having to form new ice crystals. I can't imagine bigger lumps and blocks of solid meats and stews will have defrosted fully in that time.