How to organise your fridge: what goes on which shelf

The short answer: raw meat, fish and poultry go in sealed containers on the bottom shelf. Leftovers, cooked and ready-to-eat food go above them. Fruit and vegetables go in the drawers. Keep eggs in the main body of the fridge, not the door. Set the fridge to 5 °C or below and leave space for air to move. Then give the food you need to use first its own spot at the front.

Most fridge guides stop at the shelf map. The map matters for safety, and it’s below. But the thing that decides whether food gets eaten is simpler: whether you can see it. That part comes at the end.

The shelf-by-shelf map

Bottom shelf: raw meat, fish and poultry

This is the one rule every food-safety body agrees on. The FSA says to store raw meat, poultry and fish “in their packaging or in clean sealed containers on the bottom shelf of the fridge, so they can’t touch or drip onto other food.”

There are two reasons. Raw foods can carry microbes that cooking kills, so they mustn’t drip onto anything you won’t cook. And according to EUFIC the bottom shelf “is usually the coolest part” of the fridge.

Top and middle shelves: ready-to-eat food and leftovers

Anything you’ll eat without cooking goes above the raw food: leftovers, cooked meats, cheese, yoghurt, dips, opened jars. EFSA’s rule is to “store raw and cooked food separately in the fridge to prevent cross-contamination,” and putting cooked food higher up means gravity is on your side.

Keep it covered. EUFIC recommends storing food “wrapped or in covered containers.”

Drawers: fruit and vegetables

The crisper drawers are for produce. One detail is worth knowing: some fruit, including apples, kiwis, apricots and bananas, gives off ethylene, a gas that speeds up ripening. EUFIC lists cabbage, carrots, asparagus and celery as sensitive to it. If you have two drawers, give fruit one and vegetables the other.

The door: things that cope with a bit of warmth

The door is the part of the fridge that warms up every time you open it. EUFIC: “the temperature in fridge doors tends to fluctuate.” That makes it fine for sturdy items like drinks, butter, jams and condiments, but not for eggs. Keep eggs in their carton in the main body of the fridge.

The settings that matter more than the layout

• Temperature. The FSA says 0–5 °C; EUFIC says below 4 °C. A cheap fridge thermometer on a middle shelf tells you which side of the line you’re on.
• Don’t pack it full. EUFIC: “Allow space between items, so that air can circulate and the refrigerator can function efficiently.”
• No hot pans. Hot food “will raise the temperature of the fridge” (EUFIC). Let it cool first, but get it in within two hours.
• Opened tins go in a container. EUFIC advises against storing opened tins in the fridge because of the metallic taste. Tip the contents into a covered container instead.
• Wipe spills straight away and clean the fridge regularly. Microbes grow more slowly in the cold, but they still grow.

What not to keep in the fridge

Some food does better outside it. From EUFIC’s storage table and guidance:

Keep out of the fridge	Why
Bananas	Tropical fruit, sensitive to cold
Potatoes and onions	Best somewhere cool and dark, to stop them sprouting
Garlic	Store at room temperature
Bread	Cupboard (or freezer)
Avocados, until ripe	Ripen at room temperature, then refrigerate
Tomatoes, until ripe	Ripen away from direct sunlight, then into the fridge

And the reverse catches people out: UHT milk, fruit juice and soup are fine in the cupboard until you open them, then they belong in the fridge (EUFIC).

The shelf that stops food getting lost

This is the part that changes what you actually eat. EUFIC’s own advice is to “keep foods that need to be used soon in the front or have a section in the fridge where you store foods that could spoil soon, so you remember to eat them.”

In practice:

1. Pick one spot, at eye level and at the front. A shelf, half a shelf, or a box.
2. Anything due in the next two or three days goes there. The half-pack of ham, the leftover curry, yesterday’s opened cream.
3. New shopping goes behind older stock, never in front of it. Shops call this “first in, first out”, and it works just as well at home.
4. Cook from that spot first. When you open the fridge wondering what to make, start there.

A fridge organised by shelf keeps food safe. A fridge with an “eat first” spot gets food eaten. Once a week, before you shop, take thirty seconds to move anything newly urgent to the front. If you keep a kitchen inventory, that’s the moment to update it too. There’s a method for that in how to keep a pantry inventory.

Where Nudgey fits

An “eat first” shelf works as long as you look at it. Nudgey is the same idea, but it reminds you.

Nudgey keeps your fridge, freezer and pantry in one list, sorted by what needs using first. You photograph your receipt and it fills in what you bought. Before something is due, you get a nudge, at most one a day. And it shows you recipes that use what you already have, and flags the ingredients that are due soon.

Nudgey tracks the date you give it. It isn’t a food-safety authority. The label on the pack always wins.

Nudgey is coming soon to iPhone. It starts with a 7-day free trial, then it’s a subscription. Your inventory stays on your phone.

Sources: EUFIC — How to properly store food in the fridge, freezer and cupboard · EUFIC — What foods should (or not) be stored in the fridge? · EUFIC — How to best store raw and boiled eggs · GOV.UK / FSA — How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely · EFSA — Proper food handling