How long doCherry tomatoeslast in the pantry?
A short window, and what shortens it further
This item is one of the short-lived entries in the data: 10 days outside the freezer, position 45 of 89 in the Produce list. At that scale a day of delay is a large share of the whole window, which is why the figure is printed as a range rather than an average.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA gives this item a pantry and a refrigerator figure and no freezer figure at all, the pattern behind 79 of the 466 foods in the data. Within Produce it is filed under Fresh Vegetables.
- In the pantry10 days
- In the fridge5 days
Turning the range into a date
The window here is 10 days, short enough that the day it went in is worth writing down. The field for this one is at the top of the page, above the answer it changes.
- In the pantryUse by10 days after the day you stored it
- In the fridgeUse by5 days after the day you stored it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 10 days in the pantry. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Cherry tomatoes keeps there, so the figure rates how good it will be. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.
Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.
It is past the date. Now what?
Say the calculator above puts Cherry tomatoes past its 10 days in the pantry window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold, a slimy or sticky surface, soft or darkened spots, or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.
The FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.
Two places, and one of them is the wrong one
The USDA rates two places for Cherry tomatoes in one state and they disagree: 10 days in the pantry against 5 days in the fridge. This page answers with the pantry, the longer of the two. Both figures are the USDA's own, so this is a choice of where to put the food rather than a disagreement about how long it keeps.
Is that a long time?
3 items in the Produce list keep exactly as long as this item, 10 days, so they all share place 45 of 89 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 12% of them.
Items that behave the same way
Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 1 week to 10 days against the 10 days of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
13 other products are rated in exactly these places — pantry and refrigerator — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Basil, Cilantro and Mint. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the 8 shown, 7 keep longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Cilantro at 3 weeks. Counted more loosely, by which of the three places are rated at all, 79 products match this one.
- Basil10 days in the fridgefresh
- Cilantro2 weeks in the fridge
- Mint2 weeks in the fridge
- Oregano2 weeks in the fridge
- Rosemary2 weeks in the fridge
- Chives2 weeks in the fridge
- Thyme2 weeks in the fridge
- Apple cider2 weeks in the fridge
The rest of the Fresh Vegetables shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Fresh Vegetables shelf together with 58 others, and 30 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Kimchi at 12 months down to Corn on the cob at 2 days. Nearest this product by window are Basil, Bean sprouts and Lemongrass, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Produce the same product ranks 45 of 89. The middle of the shelf is Swiss chard, at 2 weeks. The shelf is the source's own subcategory, Fresh Vegetables inside Produce.
- Basil10 days10 days in the fridge
- Bean sprouts10 days5 days sealed in the fridge
- Lemongrass9 days7 days sealed in the fridge
- Eggplant7 days4 days sealed in the fridge
- Mushrooms7 days3 days sealed in the fridge
- Rhubarb7 days3 days sealed in the fridge
- Taro7 days7 days sealed in the pantry
- Yuca/cassava7 days7 days sealed in the pantry
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 10 days, the Produce aisle gives 28 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Citrus fruit at 21 days against this one's 10 days; after it come Coconuts, Carrots and Ginger root. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 24 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Apricots and Peaches among them. The largest step the category offers is Coconut at 1 year.
- Citrus fruit21 days10 days sealed in the pantry
- Coconuts3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Carrots3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Ginger root3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Rutabagas3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Kumquats3 weeks3 weeks in the fridge
- Yams/sweet potatoes3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the pantry
- Pitaya/dragon fruit3 weeks2 days in the pantry
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 600 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 2 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the source prints its binding figure in days, so the window at the top of this page is the source's own number untouched. It is filed under Fresh Vegetables inside Produce, which is where every shelf comparison on this page comes from.
Where these numbers come from
Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.
Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.
Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.
Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.
USDA index terms: Cherry, tomato, tomatoes
KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.