How to organize your fridge, shelf by shelf

To organize your fridge, give every shelf a job: ready-to-eat food at the top, dairy and eggs in the middle, raw meat, poultry and fish sealed on the bottom shelf, and produce in the drawers. Keep the fridge at 40°F (4°C) or below, and put new food behind old so the oldest gets eaten first.

A fridge arranged this way keeps raw juices away from food you will not cook, shows you what needs eating, and stops the half jar of something from hiding at the back until it grows a coat. Here is the plan, shelf by shelf, with a weekly routine to keep it that way.

Step 1: Check the temperature first

Organizing a fridge that runs warm only makes a tidy place for food to spoil.

• Set the fridge to 40°F (4°C) or below.
• Set the freezer to 0°F (-18°C).
• Put an appliance thermometer on a middle shelf and check it after a day, because the dial on many fridges is a setting, not a reading.
• Leave room for cold air to move. A fridge packed wall to wall cools unevenly.

Step 2: Empty it and clean it

Take everything out, a shelf at a time if your kitchen is warm, and keep the cold food out of the fridge for as short a time as you can.

• Throw away anything past its use-by date, anything mouldy, and anything you cannot identify.
• Wipe shelves and drawers with warm soapy water, rinse and dry.
• Group what is left on the counter: ready-to-eat, dairy and eggs, raw meat and fish, produce, condiments.

Step 3: Give each shelf a job

Mainstream food-safety advice is built on one idea: food that will be cooked goes below food that will not, so nothing raw can drip onto something you will eat as it is.

• Top shelf: leftovers, cooked food, deli meats, hummus, tortillas, anything ready to eat.
• Middle shelves: milk, yogurt, cheese and butter. Eggs in their carton on a shelf, not in the door, where the temperature swings each time it opens.
• Bottom shelf: raw meat, poultry and fish, in a sealed container or on a rimmed tray to catch drips. If you stack them, put poultry lowest. Thaw frozen meat here too, never on the counter.
• Drawers: vegetables in one, fruit in the other. If your drawers have a humidity slider, use the higher setting for leafy greens and vegetables that wilt, and the lower one for fruit.
• Door: condiments, jams, pickles, juice and water, which cope best with the door's warmer spells.

Step 4: First in, first out

When you unpack the shopping, move the older food to the front and put the new behind it. This is the habit that saves the most food.

• Keep one clear spot on the top shelf labelled "eat first" for leftovers and opened food that needs using soon.
• Label leftovers and opened jars with the date, using a roll of masking tape and a marker kept by the fridge.
• Eat refrigerated leftovers within 3 to 4 days, or freeze them.

Step 5: Keep allergens contained

If anyone in your house has a food allergy, the fridge needs one more rule, because a spill or a shared spoon can carry an allergen onto food that looks perfectly safe. That is called cross-contact, and cooking does not remove it.

• Keep allergen-free food in sealed, clearly labelled containers.
• Store it above food that contains the allergen, so nothing can drip down onto it.
• Consider a dedicated shelf or a lidded bin for the allergy-safe foods.
• Wipe up spills straight away, and use a clean spoon for every jar.
• Check labels on sauces, dressings and spreads, which often contain milk, egg, soy, wheat, nuts or sesame.

Follow the advice of the person's doctor or allergist on what is safe for them; this plan only helps the fridge keep things apart.

Step 6: Use containers that earn their place

You do not need a set of matching bins. You need a few that do a job.

• A rimmed tray for raw meat on the bottom shelf.
• Clear, lidded containers for leftovers, so you can see what is there.
• A small bin for loose items such as cheese ends, open packets and tubes.
• Shallow containers for cooling cooked food, which chills faster than one deep pot.

Put cooked food in the fridge within 2 hours of cooking.

A weekly ten-minute reset

Do this the evening before you shop, so you know what you have and what you need.

• Check the thermometer reads 40°F (4°C) or below.
• Take out anything past its date or past 3 to 4 days as a leftover.
• Move what needs eating soon to the "eat first" spot.
• Wipe the bottom shelf and the drawers.
• Write the shopping list from the gaps, not from habit.

A quick checklist

• Fridge at 40°F (4°C) or below, freezer at 0°F (-18°C)
• Ready-to-eat on top, raw meat sealed on the bottom
• Eggs on a shelf, condiments in the door
• New food behind old, leftovers dated
• Allergen-free food sealed, labelled and stored above
• Ten-minute reset before every shop

A well-run fridge is not a pretty one. It is one where you can see everything at a glance, nothing raw sits above anything ready to eat, and the food you bought last week gets eaten before the food you bought today.