How do you pack your fridge?

we turn our 47ltr fridge into a freezer and place a 15ltr cooler on the back seat of the twin cab. There is only the 2 of us, and as we only use milk in our tea and coffee we take the little uht milk packs. We freeze all our food in vaccum packs to save on space and not having to cart around empty containers.

As for liquids eg soup, we freeze it in a plastic container first they vac pack. Even cheese salami etc we vac pak into 2day lots to keep everything fresh. We also take 2 freezer bricks which we swap over every morning into our cooler along with our evening meal food. this will defrost slowly and the cooler never switches on, it even cools downs our drinks beers and wine. By the time we stop we still have to place our steaks or whatever onto the gamma oven ( bonnet or bulbar) to finish defrosting for about 10 mins or so while we prepare the rest of the food. We pack so things are fairly tight but in and order of this corner has soups and layers of chicken, steak etc mixed up for variety, but still easy to get to if you change your mind.

The little cooler part of the fridge is still enough room to keep a spare drink each along with the open vac packs of cheese etc, eggs There is normally enough frozen food for about 5weeks when full as we also stop for the occasional counter tea when we happen to hit a decent town. We also take frozen mixed vegies as you can't take fresh fruit and veg into certain areas (quarantine stations) then we tend to buy fresh fruit and veg then at the next town. We also take dehydrated food as well as tinned fruit and veg to supplement the meals.

You can cook your spaghetti bol sauce prior to leaving, freeze it, vacpak it so all you have to do is cook the pasta and heat the sauce - quick and simple hope this helps as this is what we do but I am also curious to see what other people do cheers Garry and Judy

We use a couple of open topped plastic boxes to contain items that could make a mess if the lid unscrews and then the bottle/jar flips upside down (yes it does happen on badly corrugated roads). Otherwise when the fridge is packed we used fully or partially inflated wine bladders to jam into all the voids to stop stuff bouncing around.

We have a 190L two door fridge freezer in the van

John

Evan 1,

I put butter, cheese, tomatoes, pepperoni in the dairy part of the fridge but in the main part I use square or rectangular Lock n Lock containers to put things like ham or fritz, raw meat that I am going to eat soon like steak, snags, bacon; any leftovers etc. this way they stack up nicely and don't tend to collapse when I take something out like the milk.

Regards,
Bob

90% of original packaging goes in the bin and stuff is repacked into plastic containers that fit the spaces available.
No glass.
Zip top bags and glad wrap is the packing material of choice in the freezer.
Cut 2L of icecream into 4 pieces and put them into zip top plastic bags.........

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome

Ditto the wine cask bladders, also use them in storage boxes as items are used, keeps everything in it's place. I like the idea of the plastic boxes to store items in.

Thanks for the replies....food for thought so to speak
Cheers
Evan

We too vac pack our food and "file it" in the Waeco Freezer, when we use the food we start making ice with the zip bags therefore minimising air which takes a lot of power to cool down.

Once we have exhausted most of our food I then switch off our drinks fridge and start filling the vacant space in the freezer now turned up to about 4 degrees which will keep everything cool and the unused food keeps frozen a little longer or until we are ready to eat it typically in the last days of the trip.

cheers

Hi Evan
I agree with all the ideas suggested especially square containers stack so much better.
The one big difference I have found to make my 45 ltr fridge run more efficiently is to stuff the empty space with rolled up newspaper balls, reduce air space ( Killer for fridge efficiency ) I couldn't believe how much better it ran, hardly cycles, when it was new I thought it wasn't running properly.
Good luck
Safe Travels
Barry

I use an old whiskey bottle tin in the corner of the fridge to store either wine or a water battle. when I need the drink just pull the bottle out and the tin stops all the food stuff from falling out.

Dunc.

I use my 45lt fridge / freezer as a fridge only, we plan meals, freeze a lot of items well before going.
These are placed on the lower part of the main fridge, which is run at -2, seems to be the best temp for us to keep drinks just right :)

Use a lot of ziplock bags too, nice an easy to dispense from and fit well into nooks and crannies in the fridge.

Tinny tubes are great for cans to stop them bursting, but even cheap thin socks work fine, even for warm cans yet to be put in the fridge when restocking each morn before the days drive.

The little warmer compartment up top gets the butter, yoghurt, cheese etc, all in their own secure lidded plastic containers.

I don't usually have problems with the gaps filling in when removing something temporarily like milk (it's not a tall fridge like many on the market, which I think would make this more of an issue), but if needed, I like the idea of a suitable size tin that stays in place to keep the spot clear.