How long doesStar fruitlast in the pantry?
Freezing changes the unit, not just the number
Freezing does not just add time to this item, it changes the unit the answer is written in: 2 weeks in the sealed fridge against 12 months in the freezer, 26 times longer, months in place of weeks.
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. Within Produce it is filed under Fresh Fruits.
- In the freezer10 months to 12 months
- In the pantry1 week
- Unopened · in the fridge1 week to 2 weeks
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 pantry. Or until ripe. Ripe is when this item is tender, fully developed and ready to eat.
Turning the range into a date
The window here is 2 weeks, short enough that the day it went in is worth writing down. Each clock has its own field: a figure counted from the day of purchase cannot be counted from the day you opened it.
- In the freezerUse by10 months to 12 months after the day you stored it
- In the pantryUse by1 week after the day you stored it
- Unopened · in the fridgeUse by1 week to 2 weeks after the day you bought it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 1 week in the pantry. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Star fruit 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.
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 Star fruit past its 1 week in the pantry window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold, a slimy or sticky surface, soft or darkened spots, or a sour smell 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?
15 items in the Produce list keep exactly as long as this item, 2 weeks, so they all share place 30 of 89 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 9% of them.
Items that behave the same way
All 6 of the 6 items nearest this item keep exactly as long as it does, 2 weeks, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
Only 2 other products in the whole file carry the same set of rated places as this one, freezer, pantry and refrigerator from the day of purchase: Prickly pear and Pitaya/dragon fruit. That is 2 products out of 466, which makes this a rare shape of record rather than a common one, and it is worth knowing that the comparison below is drawn from a very small group. Of the 2 shown, 1 keeps longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Pitaya/dragon fruit at 3 weeks.
- Prickly pear2 days in the pantryup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Pitaya/dragon fruit2 days in the pantryup to 3 weeks sealed in the fridge
Closest by shape, but not an exact match — they share most of these places, not all of them.
- Blueberries1 week sealed in the fridge
- Melons2 days in the fridge once openedup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Beets1 week sealed in the fridge
- Cantaloupe5 days sealed in the fridge
- Grapes1 week sealed in the fridge
- Papaya1 week sealed in the fridge
The rest of the Fresh Fruits shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Fresh Fruits shelf together with 29 others, and 10 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Coconut at 1 year down to Cherries at 3 days. Nearest this product by window are Blueberries, Melons and Prickly pear, 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 weeks rather than at the 1 week in the pantry its own answer prints.
- Blueberries2 weeks1 week sealed in the fridge
- Melons2 weeks2 days in the fridge once opened
- Prickly pear2 weeks2 days in the pantry
- Cantaloupe15 days5 days sealed in the fridge
- Citrus fruit21 days10 days sealed in the pantry
- Coconuts3 weeks2 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Grapes1 week1 week sealed in the fridge
- Papaya1 week1 week sealed in the fridge
If it has to keep longer than this
If it has to keep longer than 2 weeks, the Produce aisle gives 13 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Baby carrots at 4 weeks against this one's 2 weeks; after it come Apples, Cranberries and Onions. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 41 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Grapes and Papaya among them. The largest step the category offers is Coconut at 1 year.
- Baby carrots4 weeks4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Apples6 weeks4 weeks sealed in the fridge
- Cranberries2 months2 months sealed in the fridge
- Onions2 months2 months sealed in the fridge
- Potatoes2 months1 month sealed in the pantry
- Spaghetti squash2 months2 months in the pantry
- Pomegranate3 months1 month sealed in the fridge
- Jicama4 months4 months sealed in the pantry
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 478 — 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 weeks, 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. It is filed under Fresh Fruits inside Produce, 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: fruit, fruits
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.