Tinned plum tomatoes (whole)

How long it keeps

About 12 months unopened

Once opened, about 2 days, refrigerated.

Source (unopened): FoodKeeper (USDA), 373 Canned goods, high acid (such as juices, fruit, pickles, sauerkraut, tomato soup, and foods in vinegar-based sauce), 12–18 Months · https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/fsis-foodkeeper-data

Source (once opened): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-chill-freeze-and-defrost-food-safely/how-to-chill-freeze-and-defrost-food-safely

What ends it. The food and the tin slowly react. That changes taste and texture rather than making it unsafe. How to make it last longer

Whole plum tomatoes

Whole plum tomatoes are usually better fruit than chopped, and crushing them by hand in the pan gives a sauce with texture rather than a uniform pulp. They take longer to cook down than chopped, which is time well spent: twenty minutes of simmering turns them from tinned to sweet.

Here they are the base of fasolada, the Greek bean soup, plum tomatoes braised with anchovy, and tomato and flatbread soup.

How long they keep

Unopened: USDA FoodKeeper gives high-acid tins, tomatoes included, 12 to 18 months. That is shorter than most of the cupboard, so rotate them: they are one of the tins most likely to be past their best when you reach for them.

Opened: the Food Standards Agency advises not to store food in an opened can (FSA). Decant half a tin into a covered container, keep it in the fridge and use it within two days.

What they give you

Per 100 g, CoFID records 11 mg of vitamin C. That makes tinned tomatoes one of the steadiest sources of vitamin C on a long-life diet, which is reason enough to keep plenty. See vitamins and a long-life diet.

Storage

Cool, dark. Usually better fruit than chopped; crush by hand in the pan.

The pack

Typical UK size: 400 g
Weight packed: 448 g
Volume: 470 ml

Computed from net weight and standard pack geometry, not weighed. Manufacturers publish net weight and nobody publishes packed weight or displaced volume, so this is an estimate and is labelled as one.

Per 100 g

Deliberately narrow. These are the five things a long-life diet actually gets wrong, plus energy and protein. It is not a general nutrition model and is not meant to be.

Energy: 19 kcal
Protein: 1.1 g
Fibre: 0.8 g
Vitamin C: 11 mg
Vitamin A: 55 µg
Omega-3: not measured
Sodium: 5 mg

Source: CoFID 2021: 13-530 Tomatoes, canned, whole contents