Organize Your Fridge To Minimize Food Wastage

7 Easy Steps To Organize Your Fridge

1. List All Recipes That You Routinely Cook

When you have already made a decision that no matter what you will organize your fridge, a good way to start your organizing journey is by making a list of all recipes that you routinely cook for you and your loved ones including the ingredients. Why? Because the list of recipes that you frequently cook will give you good information for what food items that you should keep inside your fridge as well as what food items that you need to keep.

Tip: You can use the Pantry Recipe List Form for free to make your date gathering easier.

2. Determine What Organizing Method That You Can Apply And Sustain

Probably at this stage, you have been looking around the internet to find some inspiration on how you can organize your fridge. You have most likely come across a lot of beautiful and well organized fridge photos that use matching fridge organizing containers with cute labels on them. It becomes your aspiration to transform your fridge into something “Pinterest worthy”.

However, you need to be really careful on choosing what organizing method that you want to apply and use. Some organizing methods when applied incorrectly will create additional work for you rather than making your life easier and you may possibly end up with something that you cannot sustain. Photos of beautiful and well organized fridges that you often see on the internet or social media are easy to apply but harder to sustain. If you are not careful and let your eyes and emotion lead you on what type of organizing method that you will use, you might end up with a fridge that really looks good for a while but after a few days or weeks, your fridge will be right back to looking messy again. Below are some examples of organizing methods that when applied incorrectly, will give you additional work instead of helping you to accomplish your tasks easier and faster.

– Put Everything Inside Uniform Containers

Image Source: Pinterest

Putting everything inside uniform refrigerator containers will definitely be eye appealing to everyone. It is really tempting to adopt this organizing method because it really looks beautiful and looks neat and organized. However, there is work involved in order to achieve that and you constantly need to be in control in order to sustain this type organizing method.  Aside from that, washing fruits or vegetables and slicing or peeling them before storing makes them more likely to spoil because moisture fosters bacteria growth according to food research expert Amanda Deering of Purdue University. Therefore, it shortens its shelf life.

So pick and choose wisely on what food items that you need to wash, peel and slice. These should be foods that you and your family eat often or food that you use for food preparation on a daily basis.

– Putt Labels On Each Compartment

This is actually a good idea because labels will tell what item to put where. However it will lead your fridge to not being very flexible because you assign each compartment to only store specific food items.

For example,when you grocery shopping, there are still some vegetables, eggs, fruits and so on inside your fridge unless its totally empty. When you come home after your grocery shopping, in that assigned compartment you would need to mix the newly bought food with old items and therefore, it will be hard for you to follow the first-in-first-out basis and could lead to food wastage.

Image Source: Pinterest

The labeling method is a great organizing method but sometimes there are some areas that labeling is not going to work because it eliminates storage flexibility of the particular space and this includes the fridge compartments and this is especially true if you have a small refrigerator. Fridge storage flexibility is sometimes necessary or needed in order to store all food items that need refrigeration. However, if space is not a problem, assigning each compartment for particular food items will definitely be helpful and will keep everything in place.

If space is a concern, what you can do is before you go to the grocery, grab all the vegetables from different crisper drawers and place them all in one crisper drawer. You can mentally take note of what that particular crisper drawer is containing. This is all the vegetables that you need to use first. Or, you can grab a washable marker to mark that crisper drawer “consume me first” or anything that will remind you to consume those vegetables first. So after your grocery shopping, all your newly bought vegetables will be stored in different crisper drawers separated from the old ones. This will help you to follow the first-in-first-out method and therefore help you to prevent food wastage.

The labeling method can be used to temporarily mark the crisper drawer containing old stocks of vegetables, or by marking leftovers and prepared foods with expiration dates as a reminder of when you need to consume them. By doing this, you will be able to use all of the foods that need to be eaten before they are expired.

– Removal of Original Packaging Before Placing The Food Items Into The Fridge

The principle behind this organization method is to save up some space because some packaging uses a lot of space. Food packaging comes in various sizes and shapes which makes it difficult to organize and fit into the available space that you have. However, when you do this, you need to make sure that your hands and containers that you are going to use are clean to avoid any contamination. Plus, you need to label each container with its contents and their expiration dates. When you decide to apply this organizing method, the illustration below is showing the number of steps that you need to perform every time you remove the original packaging.

The flowchart above shows the number of steps involved when you keep the contents in their original packaging versus the number of steps that you need to take when you decided to transfer the contents into another container. It clearly shows that you will incur additional work if you decided to go the other way.

Remember, the purpose of organizing is to accomplish your daily tasks easier and faster and the esthetic improvement is only an added bonus. Transferring the contents into another container is only ideal if you buy food items stored in a big container, like a gallon of ketchup for example, or if it increases the shelf life or will save you money. If the organizing method that you want to apply will only save a little bit of space in your refrigerator, can shorten the shelf life and cause you more work, then it is better to keep the contents in their original packaging especially if you are just buying a regular sized bottle containing 12 oz of liquid/sauce or less.

There are also some food items that are better to store in their original packaging like eggs. Carton packaging protects the eggs and prevent them from absorbing flavors of other foods and strong odors in your fridge aside from the fact that the best before date is always visible. The first-in-first-out method is easily applied by just placing the newly purchased box of eggs underneath the old box of eggs.

Carrots, cabbage, celery, green onions, broccoli and cucumbers are also food items that do not come in storage containers. These are vegetables that will stay fresh longer inside the crisper drawer especially if they are stored inside an untied plastic bag or washable mesh bag. If you keep these vegetables in a plastic bag, you will be able to put them in the fridge as soon as you get home from the grocery store which makes you able to accomplish your work faster. Do not forget to apply Appropriate Refrigerator Storage Techniques for each Food Category mentioned above because it will help you to keep your food fresh for a longer period of time.

Therefore, choose an organizing method that will help you accomplish your daily tasks in a more efficient and effective way. This will help you to have more time to do the things that matter and will help you eliminate food wastage and therefore save you money.

3. Buy Sticky Notes And Utilize Color A Coding Scheme

You are probably thinking, what do sticky notes have to do with organizing your fridge? Because a sticky note will help you to utilize the color coding system. Use the above Fridge Storage Compartments guide to know what specific food category should be placed in each compartment and assign a particular color. See the examples below:

• Use Teal or Blue color sticky notes for food items that should be stored in the Upper Shelf compartments.
  
• Use Pink color sticky notes for food items that will be placed in the refrigerator Door compartments.
• Use Green color sticky notes for all fruits and vegetable that will be place in the Crisper Drawer compartments.
• Use Orange color sticky notes for eggs, all dairy products and raw meat that will utilize the Lower Shelf compartments.
• Use Yellow color sticky notes for all items that will go inside the Freezer section.

Once you have decided on color assignment, the color will visually guide you on what food items should be grouped together as well as where to put them inside your fridge. So when you are ready to remove everything from your fridge, place a corresponding color of sticky notes on each food item as you remove them from the fridge.

4. Decide On What Section To Begin With

• To prevent you from being overwhelmed, organize your fridge one section at a time. Remove all objects from each specified region and place a corresponding color sticky note on each food item following the Fridge Storage Compartments guide as you temporarily store them in a cooler.
• Once the fridge compartment is empty, clean all of the surfaces with wet towels. Use refrigerator liners if you want. A refrigerator liner will help to keep drawers and shelves clean and dry, plus they will also help protect your glass shelves or create a solid surface for wire shelves.
• Once you are done cleaning the first compartment, follow the same procedure as you begin to tackle the second compartments and so on until all compartments have been emptied and cleaned.
• You can start organizing the Freezer compartment once you are done organizing the fridge compartments.

5. Examine The Food Items That Have Been Taken Out

Once you’re done cleaning all fridge compartments, color code each compartment by placing a corresponding color sticky note, use the same color scheme you used in step no.4. This will visually guide you to where to place food items when you start putting food items back in the refrigerator. However, before returning all the food items that have been taken out of the refrigerator, you need to examine first all the food items and do the following:

• Examine each food item’s expiration date and its condition.
• All food items that are not expired and still in good condition should be returned to the fridge. Pay attention to the color of the sticky notes attached to each of the food items as this will tell you what compartment the item should be stored. All items with the same color sticky note should be placed in the compartment that has the same color sticky note. For example, all food items with pink sticky notes attached should all be stored in the compartments with pink sticky note and so on.
• At this stage, you are only trying to group all the foods that need to be stored in the specific compartments. So don’t worry, if after this stage your fridge still looks unorganized. The thing that matters here is to return all the food items to the inside of the refrigerator as fast as possible.
• Set aside all food items that have already passed the expiration date or anything that does not look good or has an unpleasant smell.  These expired food items will give you an idea on what you need to do in order keep this food wastage from happening. Do not discard them yet!

6. Have A Dedicated Space For Everything

Now that all your food items are already stored in the proper fridge compartment, it’s now time to group foods by type. If you have clear bins, baskets or other containers on hand, use them to corral similar items. However, if you do not have these, it’s ok just to group them together and then buy the necessary containers afterward. Actually it’s advisable to do the shopping for organizing products after this process so you will know what type of organizing products to buy that will help you with your storage needs.

Upper Shelves:

The use of bins and baskets will ensure everything is correctly stored in a space-saving manner and is ideal to organize your upper shelves. The handles that come with the baskets and bins allow easy access to food. For leftover foods, use containers with a lid or a leak-proof container to prevent any spillage.

Lower Shelves:

Eggs, meat and dairy products are food categories that are ideal to store in the lower shelf compartment.  Choose a clear container to store these food items as visibility is the key to good fridge organization. The more visible the food is inside the fridge the most likely that they will be eaten before they get stale.

Lazy Susan turntables are an deal organizer to group together all your dairy food items, such as milk, heavy cream, whipped cream, etc. to make everything accessible.

To prevent cross-contamination with other foods, place any raw meat packages on the lowest shelf of the refrigerator and place them on a tray or wrap them in a good plastic grocery bag.

Fridge Crisper Drawers

Image Source: Pinterest

If your crisper drawers are big enough, add baskets or dividers to sort the drawer contents with ease. Place the heaviest items like carrots on the bottom and then place the more delicate or lighter items like green onions on top to maximize the use of space.

7. Determine The Cause Of  Your Messy Refrigerator

Once you have put everything back and dedicated a space for everything, it is time for you to identify the root cause as to why your fridge was a mess by using all of your expired food items. This is the reason why you were asked to set aside all of the inedible foods instead of throwing them away immediately. All of the expired foods or food that does not look or smell good will give you useful information about why your fridge was a big mess. Below is the information that you can get from all expired and stale food items that you collected when you organized your fridge:

a. It could mean that the particular item was not really part of your daily diet. If is not part of your diet then these food items should not be part of your grocery list.

• Use the data on the first step (List Down All Recipes That You Routinely Cook) by comparing the list of ingredients of the recipes that you routinely cook versus the expired items that you collected.
• If the food that you eat does not contain the food that have expired in your fridge, the item was expired because it’s a food item that you do not like to eat or food that you do not eat often.  Therefore, that item should also be crossed off of your grocery list.
• If that expired item is part of your regular diet then you need to consider reducing the amount that you buy to eliminate the food from getting expired.

b. Food that you tend to overstock or items that you buy more than you and your family can consume.

• Overstocking could also be cause of your tendency to buy huge quantities when goods are at a great discount. Buying a lot of food because there is a great sale will not save you money if the food will become expired before you can consume it. Avoid compulsive buying and only buy what you need.
• The amount of goods to buy should be based on your storage capacity, your family needs and the frequency you do grocery shopping. For instance, if you like to go do grocery shopping 3 times a week, there is really no need to stock up goods especially perishable ones.

c.  Food that simply got buried in the back part of the refrigerator. This problem can be easily solved by just utilizing the first-in-first-out method, storing newly purchased items behind the old ones, so you grab the old one first. Or you can write the date of purchase on jars or bottles to have a constant reminder of what item you need to use first.

d. For food items that are still within the date but do not look appetizing anymore or have an unpleasant smell it could mean:

• You are storing them in the wrong compartment of the fridge.
• There could be a food handling issue.
• You are storing them incorrectly.

And these storage problems have already been dealt with by doing the first 5 steps to organize your fridge.