How long doesChocolatelast in the pantry once opened?
Sealed against opened
Opening the package costs 2 times here: 2 years sealed in the pantry against 1 year open in the pantry. That is a real difference and worth dating the container for, but not the collapse it becomes for the more perishable items in the same list.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA rates this item in the pantry and nowhere else, one of 84 foods of the 466 it files that way. Within Baked Goods it is filed under Baking and Cooking.
- Unopened · in the pantry1 year to 2 years
- Once opened · in the pantry1 year
Turning the range into a date
Two clocks run on this item: one from the day it went into storage and one from the day the seal broke. Both are listed below, 2 rows in all.
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by1 year to 2 years after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the pantryUse by1 year after the day you opened it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 1 year in the pantry once opened. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Chocolate, unsweetened and semi-sweet, solid 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 Chocolate, unsweetened and semi-sweet, solid past its 1 year in the pantry once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold takes the whole package out rather than the slice it grew on, and so does a musty or old-oil smell in a flour or a mix.
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?
15 items in the Baked Goods list keep exactly as long as this item, 2 years, so they all share place 3 of 52 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 70% of them.
Items that behave the same way
All 5 of the 6 items nearest this item 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
This is a common shape of record: 30 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, pantry from the day of purchase and pantry after opening, and 7 of the nine slots are left blank on all of them. Sorted by how close their windows are to this one, the nearest are Textured soy protein, Vegetable oil sprays and Shortening, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does.
- Textured soy protein3 months in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Vegetable oil sprays1 year in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Shortening6 months in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Chili powder2 years in the pantry once opened
- Seasoning blends1 year in the pantry once opened
- Beans1 year in the pantry once opened
- Pasta1 year in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
- Dry egg noodles1 month in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
The rest of the Baking and Cooking shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Baking and Cooking shelf together with 34 others, and 2 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Baking soda at 3 years down to Herbs at 10 days. Nearest this product by window are Cornmeal, Vegetable oil sprays and Shortening, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so this item sits here at 2 years rather than at the 1 year in the pantry once opened its own answer prints.
- Cornmeal2 years6 months sealed in the pantry
- Vegetable oil sprays2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
- Shortening2 years6 months in the pantry once opened
- Chili powder2 years2 years in the pantry once opened
- Seasoning blends2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
- Sugar substitutes2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
- Whole wheat flour2 years2 years in the fridge
- Almond extract2 years12 months in the pantry once opened
If it has to keep longer than this
Nothing the USDA files under Baked Goods keeps at least twice as long as this one outside the freezer. It runs the other way: 30 entries in the category keep half as long or less, among them Cocoa and cocoa mixes, Garam masala and Fruit cake. So the question this page answers is not what to buy instead, but what this product outlasts on the same shelf, and by how much. Twice as long is the cutoff used here, so a product a few days apart from this one is not treated as a step.
- Cocoa and cocoa mixes1 year1 year in the pantry once opened
- Garam masala1 year1 year in the pantry
- Fruit cake12 months6 months sealed in the pantry
- Flour12 months6 months in the pantry once opened
- Frosting or icing12 months2 weeks in the fridge once opened
- Gelatin12 months3 months in the pantry once opened
- Oils12 months3 months in the pantry once opened
- Nut oils12 months6 months in the fridge once opened
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 216 — 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 years, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. It is filed under Baking and Cooking inside Baked Goods, 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: Chocolate, semi sweet, solid, sweet, unsweetened
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.