How long doPotato chipslast in the pantry once opened?

What opening the package actually costs

Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 2 months sealed in the pantry; once open it holds 2 weeks open in the pantry, the same food measured in weeks instead of months, a drop of 4.3 times.

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.

• In the pantryPackage use-by date
• Unopened · in the pantry2 months
• Once opened · in the pantry1 week to 2 weeks

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 pantry it answers with the package date rather than a number, and the use-by date printed on that particular package is the figure to go by.

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 by2 months after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the pantryUse by1 week to 2 weeks after the day you opened it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 1 week to 2 weeks in the pantry once opened. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Potato chips 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 Potato chips past its 1 week to 2 weeks in the pantry once opened 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.

Is that a long time?

Among the 70 items the USDA files under Shelf Stable Foods, this item ranks 67 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Pine nuts holds 3 months, Pectin holds 1 month. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 23% of them.

Items that behave the same way

The 6 items below are the closest match to this item by storage behavior, running 7 days to 5 months and bracketing its 2 months.

• Pectinkeeps 1 month in the pantry once opened
• Cashew butterkeeps 3 months in the pantry
• Pine nutskeeps 3 months in the fridge
• Roasted nuts (peanuts, cashews, almonds)keeps 4 weeks in the fridge once opened
• Polentakeeps 5 days in the fridge once openedshelf-stable
• Marshmallow crèmekeeps 1 month in the pantry once openedup to 5 months sealed in the pantry

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 Marshmallow crème, Pretzels and Gelatin, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the 8 shown, 8 keep longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Lentils at 1 year.

• Marshmallow crème1 month in the pantry once openedup to 5 months sealed in the pantry
• Pretzels3 weeks in the pantry once openedup to 9 months sealed in the pantry
• Gelatin3 months in the pantry once openedflavored · up to 12 months sealed in the pantry
• Tapiocas12 months in the pantry once opened
• Cereal2 months in the pantry once openedready-to-eat · up to 12 months sealed in the pantry
• Toaster pastries1 week in the pantry once openedup to 12 months sealed in the pantry
• Lentils1 year in the pantry once opened
• Peas1 year in the pantry once opened

The rest of the Shelf Stable Foods shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Shelf Stable Foods shelf together with 69 others, and 66 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 Pectin, Cashew butter and Pine nuts, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Shelf Stable Foods the same product ranks 67 of 70. The middle of the shelf is Sunflower oil, at 1 year. 5 products on this shelf publish no window outside the freezer and stay out of the order.

• Pectin1 month1 month in the pantry once opened
• Cashew butter3 months3 months in the pantry
• Pine nuts3 months3 months in the fridge
• Roasted nuts4 weeks4 weeks in the fridge once opened
• Polenta7 days5 days in the fridge once opened
• Pork rinds4 months4 months in the pantry
• Marshmallow crème5 months1 month in the pantry once opened
• Fruits, dried6 months6 months in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 2 months, the Shelf Stable Foods aisle gives 64 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Pork rinds at 4 months against this one's 2 months; after it come Marshmallow crème, Fruits, dried and Cashews. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 3 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Pectin and Roasted nuts among them.

• Pork rinds4 months4 months in the pantry
• Marshmallow crème5 months1 month in the pantry once opened
• Fruits, dried6 months6 months in the fridge once opened
• Cashews6 months6 months sealed in the fridge
• Roasted red peppers6 months4 months in the fridge
• Pumpkin seeds6 months6 months in the fridge
• Breadcrumbs6 months6 months in the pantry
• Instant breakfast drinks6 months6 months in the pantry

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 392 — 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. 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: chip, chips, potato, potatoes

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.