Had a conversation with my wife today about the unopened mayo we had sitting in the pantry and it made me think – how does it make sense for a food (for instance mayo) to sit in a 65-70 degree pantry for months and be perfectly fine, but as soon as it’s opened it needs to be refrigerated. In my mind, if something needs to be refrigerated at any point, wouldn’t it always need to be refrigerated? The seal on the unopened product keeps the item safe, and the refrigerator does that when the seal is off? How do those two things relate?
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Fun fact, Mayo doesn’t need to be refrigerated after opening either. However, better with the squeeze bottles or using a fresh scoping utensil and not touching bread/food and then going back for more. The contamination comes from stuff going back into the jar. Obviously don’t keep past use by date.
How do I know this? A restaurant I used to go to had Hellmans/Best Food Mayo containers on the tables that said “no refrigeration required”. I asked them to buy some because we frequently go camping and fridge space is limited. Restaurant closed down so I called Hellmans/Best and asked about buying that Mayo without being a business. They told me the consumer and commercial are the same, no refrigeration required as long as not cross contaminated and used before the date. The reason they put that label on the restaurant bottles is so people don’t freak out seeing the Mayo left out!
Now for almost any other product, what everyone else said is correct.
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