How should I organize my refrigerator?
Whether you’re stocking a restaurant fridge or your refrigerator at home, the organization method can have a big impact on how long your food lasts.
In general, you should store foods by cooking temperature. Put foods that require less or no cooking over foods that require more cooking. Organizing your fridge properly helps protect your food from contamination, which reduces food waste and saves you money.
For example, you should store salad on a higher shelf than raw meat so that there’s absolutely no chance the raw meat juices will drip on the salad.
If you only have meat in your fridge, you’d want to put the meat with the lowest cooking temperature on the top shelf. That way, even if it drips a little onto the meats below, any bacteria transferred with the juice will be killed during cooking.
For more information, including a handy refrigerator organization chart, visit our article “Fridge Storage for Food Safety.”
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