An independent shelf-life reference.
WillItExpire is a quick reference for how long food lasts in the fridge, the pantry, and the freezer — plus a personal pantry tracker that nudges you before things go bad. Built and maintained as an independent project, sourced from official US food-safety guidance.
What this is
A quick "keep or toss?" lookup. You type milk or chicken or olive oil, you get the fridge / pantry / freezer durations plus the signs that something has gone bad and the sources behind the answer. The site loads in under a second, works offline as a Progressive Web App, and runs entirely from a static HTML shell.
There is also a personal pantry tracker you can opt into. Save items with the date you opened them; the tracker reminds you when they're about to expire. Items you track stay on your device unless you sign in (which syncs them to your account via Supabase).
Why we built it
Food date labels in the United States are almost always about quality, not safety. That framing is on the USDA FSIS website if you go looking for it, but it's not on the carton when you're standing in front of your fridge wondering whether the half-and-half is still good. WillItExpire takes the official guidance, makes it scannable, and adds the specific item-level signals — opened-vs-unopened durations, spoilage signs, the rules of thumb that food-safety extension agents use.
Every duration on every page traces back to a primary source. We explain how that works in the methodology page.
Who maintains it
What this is not
WillItExpire is not a substitute for medical advice. If you are pregnant, immunocompromised, very young, very old, or otherwise at higher risk from foodborne illness, follow your physician's guidance — especially around raw and undercooked products, soft cheeses, and deli meats, where the public-health guidance is stricter than what's published on this site.
WillItExpire is not a medical-device-grade source. It's an editorial site built on top of public food-safety guidance. If a manufacturer's package says something stricter than what we publish, follow the manufacturer. If a public-health agency issues a recall on a product you have, follow the recall.
WillItExpire does not accept paid placements, sponsored content, or affiliate links that influence editorial decisions. The site currently runs without ads or monetization. If that changes in the future, monetization will be visually separated from the shelf-life answers and announced on this page.
How it's made
Static HTML and CSS. A small React SPA for the search-and-track interface. Supabase for the optional account sync. No analytics, no third-party tracking pixels, no cookie banners required because there's nothing to consent to. Open-source on GitHub.
For details on what data the optional pantry tracker stores and how, see the privacy page.