How long doesTapenadelast in the fridge?

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 a pantry and a refrigerator figure and no freezer figure at all, the pattern behind 79 of the 466 foods in the data.

• Unopened · in the pantry9 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 refrigerator, from the day you bought it. Not necessary, but flavor will enhance.

Turning the range into a date

Counting 9 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 by9 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 9 months in the fridge. Nothing here names the food: neither Tapenade nor the heading it sits under says whether it spoils dangerously or keeps itself. Past it, take the shorter of the two answers: we would rather print that the record does not settle it than pick one for you.

The figure in the pantry here is a quality window. The same page carries windows of more than one kind, so which sentence applies depends on which row you are reading, not on the food. 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 Tapenade past its 9 months in the fridge window. Nothing here settles whether that date is a limit or a matter of taste. If the food is moist, low in acid and ready to eat — a sauce, a drink, a filling — treat the date as a limit and throw it out untasted; otherwise look and smell, and out it goes if either is off.

The USDA's limit for perishable food standing at room temperature is 2 hours, or 1 hour when the kitchen is above 90 °F, and that clock runs whatever the storage figure 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.

Is that a long time?

6 items in the Shelf Stable Foods list keep exactly as long as this item, 9 months, so they all share place 48 of 70 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 91% of them.

Items that behave the same way

All 3 of the 6 items nearest this item keep exactly as long as it does, 9 months, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.

• Graham cracker/animal crackerkeeps exactly as long
• Pretzelskeeps exactly as long
• Pecanskeeps exactly as long
• Crackerskeeps 3 months in the fridge once openedup to 8 months sealed in the pantry
• Almondskeeps 8 months sealed in the fridgeno shell
• Cerealkeeps 2 months in the pantry once openedready-to-eat · up to 12 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 Soy flour, Pumpkins and Jicama. 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, 1 keeps longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Almond oil at 2 years.

• 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
• Taro7 days sealed in the pantry
• Almond oil2 years sealed 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 47 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 Graham cracker/animal cracker, Gummy and Pretzels, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Shelf Stable Foods the same product ranks 48 of 70. The middle of the shelf is Sunflower oil, at 1 year.

• Graham cracker/animal cracker9 months6 months sealed in the pantry
• Gummy9 months6 months sealed in the pantry
• Pretzels9 months3 weeks in the pantry once opened
• Pecans9 months9 months sealed in the fridge
• Granola9 months6 months in the pantry
• Crackers8 months3 months in the fridge once opened
• Almonds8 months8 months sealed in the fridge
• Cereal12 months2 months in the pantry once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 9 months, the Shelf Stable Foods aisle gives 25 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Applesauce at 18 months against this one's 9 months; after it come Fruit cocktail, Chia seeds and Peanut butter. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 7 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Pork rinds and Cashew butter among them.

• Applesauce18 months7 days in the fridge once opened
• Fruit cocktail18 months18 months in the pantry
• Chia seeds18 months18 months in the pantry
• Peanut butter24 months2 months in the pantry once opened
• 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

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 502 — 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.