How long doesCoconut creamlast in the fridge once opened?

What opening the package actually costs

Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 5 years sealed in the pantry; once open it holds 4 days open in the fridge, the same food measured in days instead of years, a drop of 456 times.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

All three places the USDA recognizes are rated here — pantry, refrigerator and freezer — which only 65 of the 466 foods in the data manage. The source also indexes it as can.

• In the freezer3 months
• Unopened · in the pantry2 years to 5 years
• Once opened · in the fridge4 days

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, 3 rows in all.

• In the freezerUse by3 months after the day you stored it
• Unopened · in the pantryUse by2 years to 5 years after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by4 days after the day you opened it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 4 days in the fridge once opened. Nothing here names the food: neither Coconut cream, canned 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 figures in the freezer and in the pantry here are 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. Held at 0 °F food stays safe for as long as it stays frozen, which is why a freezer figure counts as quality on this site whatever the food is. 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 Coconut cream, canned past its 4 days in the fridge once opened window. 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. Freezing stops the clock but does not turn it back: food already past its window is not rescued by putting it in the freezer. 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?

2 items in the Shelf Stable Foods list keep exactly as long as this item, 5 years, so they all share place 1 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 16% of them.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 2 years to 5 years against the 5 years of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• Sesame seedskeeps exactly as long
• Cinnamon, ground, dried, commercially bottled or purchased in bulkkeeps 3 years sealed in the pantry
• Coconut oilkeeps 3 years in the pantry
• Tunakeeps 3 years in the pantrycanned
• Tomato pastekeeps 5 days in the fridge once openedup to 27 months sealed in the pantry
• Chocolate syrupkeeps 6 months in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry

Products the USDA rates in the same places

4 other products are rated in exactly these places — freezer, pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator after opening — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Tomato paste, Yeast and Coconut. 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 Tomato paste at 27 months.

• Tomato paste5 days in the fridge once openedup to 27 months sealed in the pantry
• Yeast4 months in the fridge once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Coconut8 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Coconut milk7 days in the fridge once opened

Closest by shape, but not an exact match — they share most of these places, not all of them.

• Applesauce7 days in the fridge once openedcommercial · up to 18 months sealed in the pantry
• Nuts2 months in the pantry once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
• Crackers3 months in the fridge once openedup to 8 months sealed in the pantry
• Tuna3 years in the pantrycanned

The rest of the Shelf Stable Foods shelf

Nothing else on the Shelf Stable Foods shelf keeps longer outside the freezer than this one. The other 69 products there run down from Sesame seeds at 5 years to Polenta at 7 days, and the ones nearest this product by window are Sesame seeds, Cinnamon and Cumin. That makes this page the top of its own shelf rather than a middle entry. Across the whole of Shelf Stable Foods the same product ranks 1 of 70. The middle of the shelf is Grapeseed oil, at 1 year.

• Sesame seeds5 years5 years in the pantry
• 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 oil3 years3 years in the pantry
• Tuna3 years3 years in the pantry

If it has to keep longer than this

Nothing the USDA files under Shelf Stable Foods keeps at least twice as long as this one outside the freezer. It runs the other way: 60 entries in the category keep half as long or less, among them Tomato paste, Chocolate syrup and Molasses. 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. Freezing this one instead would reach 3 months, which the comparison above leaves out on purpose.

• Tomato paste27 months5 days in the fridge 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
• Cajun seasoning blend2 years1 year sealed in the pantry
• Flaxseed2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
• Almond oil2 years2 years sealed in the fridge

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 601 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 3 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. The same record answers to can in the source's own index. 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.

USDA index terms: can, canned, coconut, coconut cream, cream

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.