How long doesRelishlast in the pantry?

The methods the USDA actually rates for this item

The USDA rates only 2 of its nine storage methods for this item, and the pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator from the day of purchase are what it rates. The other 7 slots are blank, and a blank is not a zero: it means no published figure, not that the method fails.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA gives this item 2 storage times across the pantry and the refrigerator and none for the freezer, though it does attach a freezing note: a note is not a published figure.

• Unopened · in the pantry30 months
• Unopened · in the fridge9 months

What the USDA adds in words

The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is not a storage time: it qualifies the figure above rather than replacing it. These are the source's own sentences, not ours, and they are the part of the FoodKeeper record that a table of durations cannot carry.

In the freezer. Freezing not recommended.

Turning the range into a date

Counting 30 months forward from a date is not arithmetic anyone does reliably in their head. Give the field the day it went into storage.

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by30 months after the day you bought it
• Unopened · in the fridgeUse by9 months after the day you bought it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 30 months in the pantry. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Relish 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 Relish past its 30 months in the pantry window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. A jar or can that is bulging, leaking or rusted goes out unopened, and so does an opened one with mold at the rim or a sour, fizzing smell.

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 Relish in one state and they disagree: 30 months in the pantry against 9 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?

Among the 41 items the USDA files under Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods, this item ranks 5 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Soy sauce or teriyaki sauce holds 3 years, Dry gravy mixes holds 2 years.

Items that behave the same way

The 6 items nearest it sit inside a band of 24 months to 2 years — a tight cluster, and this item at 30 months is inside it.

• Dry gravy mixeskeeps 1 day in the fridgeup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Honeykeeps 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Mustardkeeps 1 year in the fridge once opened
• Thai red curry pastekeeps 5 days in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Cranberry saucekeeps 1 week in the fridge once openedcanned · up to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Black bean saucekeeps 3 months in the fridge once openedup to 24 months sealed in the pantry

Products the USDA rates in the same places

9 other products are rated in exactly these places — pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator from the day of purchase — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Almond oil, Tapenade and Soy flour. 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.

• Almond oil2 years sealed in the fridge
• Tapenade9 months sealed in the fridge
• Soy flour6 months sealed in the fridge
• Pumpkins3 months sealed in the fridge
• Jicama4 months sealed in the pantry
• Citrus fruit10 days sealed in the pantry
• Coconuts2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Artichokes1 week sealed in the fridge

The rest of the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods shelf together with 40 others, and 4 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Gravy at 5 years down to Aioli at 4 days. Nearest this product by window are Dry gravy mixes, Honey and Mustard, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods the same product ranks 5 of 41. The middle of the shelf is Pickles, at 1 year.

• Dry gravy mixes2 years1 day in the fridge
• Honey2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Mustard2 years1 year in the fridge once opened
• Sauce mixes2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Vinegar2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Thai red curry paste2 years5 days in the fridge once opened
• Cranberry sauce2 years1 week in the fridge once opened
• Black bean sauce24 months3 months in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 30 months, Condiments, Sauces & Canned Goods offers 3 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Gravy at 5 years against this one's 30 months, and the rest are Balsamic vinegar and Anchovies. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 24 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Barbecue sauce and Chutney among them.

• Gravy5 years1 day in the fridge once opened
• Balsamic vinegar5 years18 months in the fridge once opened
• Anchovies5 years3 days in the fridge once opened

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 500 — 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 binding figure on it is printed by the source in months, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. The record carries 1 handling note, quoted on this page word for word. Every figure here comes from one fixed snapshot, USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026, and is not refreshed page by page.

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.

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.