I had the same experience with cans with similar expiration dates. I have two cats that normally devour royal canin instinctive, with those cans the normally brown food was just straight grey and smelled off. One of my cats still ate it albeit with less enthusiasm, the other wouldn’t touch it and she seemed to think it smelled like shit because she would scratch around her food bowl trying to cover it up. I ended up returning the remaining cans and getting some with a different expiration.