You need a door with a grill in it or you need a HVAC vent and return.

Or under cut the bottom of the door about an inch and a half to allow airflow.

Our pantry has a solid 80 year old wood door, and we don't have any issues with odors.

(The door happens to be undercut because it was re-used from another area of our home. All our doors are undercut to allow for return air when AC was retrofit to our house, since there was no original ductwork.)

What are you planing on storing in the pantry?

It is not a root cellar.

Canned and dry gods are not known to produce a lot of smells.

Unfortunately we have a heat duct running underneath floor of our 4 x 4' pantry closet. This elevates the temp in the space. Although the room was not intended to be a larder, we do store some foods in there. Although we'd put a louvered door on it so we can run heat and moisture generating dehydrator inside, I wish we'd also put a vent high on the back wall (the basement stairwell is on back side of this wall). This would have been caused a constant stream of air through the closet and would also stir the air in the stairwell.

If I ever do a build I will copy a walk in pantry that had a vent in the floor to draw cooler air from the basement, an exhaust vent to the outside, and a fan system that kicked in whenever the door was opened.

I think this might depend on your region. I am in the dry Pac NW, and I don't have any issue with pantry smells. We do have about 1.5" under the door, though.

I'm glad you posted about this. That thread scared me, too! :-)

We have a 9'x9'10 pantry, which will have a stand up freezer in it. When we brought up the issue of ventilation with our GC, he said they'd never put in ventiilation in a panty before.

I keep my bulk goods in sealed containers, and have never had an issues in our old house, but just in case, we're put in a vent cover above our pantry door. There's won't be any circulating air because it won't be hooked to our HVAC system, but between the vent cover and the door open while I'm cooking/baking, we're hoping that will be sufficient.

I'm not on my computer at the moment, but I posted some pictures of what we're thinking of doing on our home blog. (Link below).

I'd love to hear a few others with walk-in pantries chime in with their experiences, especially those with freezers or appliances plugged in.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ventilation for the Pantry

thought I'd add an update so no one follows my example as bragged up in earlier posts...

Our pantry closet has been in use for over a year.

We thought that a louvered door on the pantry closet would introduce sufficient air passage. We have a cold air return within the closet but also a heating duct running under the floor (which warms the air so closet is warmer than the adjacent room).

We have operated a dehydrator or two within the closet pantry at times. We have also stored potatoes in the closet.

This combination of circumstances and "features" is NOT recommended!

The paint is now peeling on the ceiling.

We have just installed a vent opening at the top of the back wall of the closet which will allow air to enter through the louvered door of the closet and exit at the ceiling on back of closet into the upper part of the basement stairway wall. It is our hope that we have now introduced an air current sufficient to allow the heat to exit the closet. Not sure how it's gonna work, but it can't hurt. THANKS, DH!

We do not store foods in here, except beer, booze for parties, dogfood and jars of jelly and maple syrup. We're re=thinking the potatoes because of the warm temp and haven't yet made a decision. The beer may be a bad idea also because of the warm temp.

Buy your beer unchilled.
Even if you buy it cold, it's had a long warm/cold cycle.

Brewed: warm to cool
Kegged: cool
Loaded on truck: warm to hot
Put in store storeroom: room temperature
Store chiller: cold.

Coors used to be the only vendors that shipped their stuff cold, but they don't do it anymore.

If you think that's bad, imagine how imports get boiled!

I wouldn't do the potatoes. They need cool and dry.

We have a pull out cabinet for our pantry and we cannot store potatoes in there for more than a day. Onions and garlic do fine, though. No bad odors have appeared and we've been living in the kitchen for 18 months in the humid south.

O.t. to CEFreeman:

Thanks for beer advice. I try to buy beer that is not cold but sometimes it happens anyway. In winter I can store beer in garage except for DH's beers, which he drinks fashionably warm because he's an MG owner and driver. ;-q

Never thought about beer in an overheated container on a ship at the equator or such places. Thanks a bunch.