How long does"Genuine" Maple syruplast in the pantry?
The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately
The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — unopened, glass and unopened, plastic — and they do not keep for the same time: "Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, plastic holds 2 years outside the freezer, "Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, glass holds 4 years.
Built to sit on a shelf
"Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, plastic is built to sit. It keeps 2 years outside the freezer. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 92% of them. It is long enough that the date it went into storage matters more than anything you can judge by looking at it.
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. The source also indexes it as unopened, glass and plastic.
"Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, glass
- In the pantry4 years
- In the fridgeIndefinitely
"Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, plastic
- In the pantry2 years
- In the fridge18 months to 24 months
Where the USDA answers in words instead of days
1 of the nine slots the USDA keeps for this item holds an answer that is not a number, and an answer in words is still an answer: in the fridge it answers Indefinitely, so kept that way the food does not run out of time, though it can still lose quality.
Turning the range into a date
Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 3 rows across the 2 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.
"Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, glass
- In the pantryUse by4 years after the day you stored it
"Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, plastic
- In the pantryUse by2 years after the day you stored it
- In the fridgeUse by18 months to 24 months after the day you stored it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 2 years in the pantry. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying "Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, plastic 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 "Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, plastic past its 2 years in the pantry window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. A rancid, paint-like smell in a nut, an oil or a seed, mold around the neck of a bottle, or a swollen can 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 "Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, plastic in one state and they disagree: 2 years in the pantry against 18 months to 24 months 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?
10 items in the Shelf Stable Foods list keep exactly as long as "Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, plastic, 2 years, so they all share place 12 of 70 rather than being put in an order the data does not support.
Items that behave the same way
All 6 of the 6 items nearest "Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, plastic keep exactly as long as it does, 2 years, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
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 Ghee, Pumpkin seeds and Bread. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does. The longest-keeping of them is Ghee at 2 years. Counted more loosely, by which of the three places are rated at all, 79 products match this one.
- Ghee1 year in the fridge
- Pumpkin seeds6 months in the fridgeraw, no shell
- Bread2 months in the fridge
- Spaghetti squash2 months in the pantrywhole
- Cilantro2 weeks in the fridge
- Mint2 weeks in the fridge
- Oregano2 weeks in the fridge
- Rosemary2 weeks in the fridge
The rest of the Shelf Stable Foods shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Shelf Stable Foods shelf together with 69 others, and 11 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Coconut cream at 5 years down to Polenta at 7 days. Nearest this product by window are Chocolate syrup, Molasses and Popcorn, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Shelf Stable Foods the same product ranks 12 of 70. The middle of the shelf is Grapeseed oil, at 1 year. 5 products on this shelf publish no window outside the freezer and stay out of the order.
- Chocolate syrup2 years6 months in the fridge once opened
- Molasses2 years6 months in the pantry once opened
- Popcorn2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
- Black pepper2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
- Cajun seasoning blend2 years1 year sealed in the pantry
- Flaxseed2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
- Almond oil2 years2 years sealed in the fridge
- Sesame oil2 years6 months in the pantry once opened
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 2 years, the Shelf Stable Foods aisle gives 7 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Cinnamon at 4 years against this one's 2 years; after it come Cumin, Garlic powder and Onion powder. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 45 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Bacon bits and Marshmallows among them. The largest step the category offers is Sesame seeds at 5 years.
- Cinnamon4 years3 years sealed in the pantry
- Cumin4 years3 years sealed in the pantry
- Garlic powder4 years3 years sealed in the pantry
- Onion powder4 years3 years sealed in the pantry
- Nutmeg4 years3 years sealed in the pantry
- Coconut cream5 years4 days in the fridge once opened
- Sesame seeds5 years5 years in the pantry
The record this page is built from
The USDA publishes 2 separate rows under this name — records 533 and 534 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 2 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for "Genuine" Maple syrup, unopened, plastic, which is the kind the plain name means here, chosen kind by kind rather than by the order the source happens to list them in. 1 slot is answered in words instead of days, and printed as the source wrote it.
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: Genuine Maple syrup, glass, plastic, syrup, unopened
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.