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How to Keep Fruits & Vegetables Fresher for Longer

How many times have you gone to the grocery store, full of hope and good intentions, filling your basket with a bounty of beautiful, colourful fruits and vegetables? You bring them home, so proud of yourself, with plans to eat all of that fresh and nutritious produce. You carefully tuck them away in the crisper drawers in your fridge, only to find them rotten a few days or a week later. Hopes dashed! Plans ruined! –and money, wasted.

With the rising cost of food, it’s more important now than ever to keep your fruits & vegetables fresher for longer. 

Back in 2017 the average Canadian household wasted $1100 worth of food annually ($1600 in the US!). Now it’s over $1300 CAD per year and climbing, and 45% of that wasted food is fruits and vegetables alone!

What is wasted in Canadian Households? 
Pie chart:
Vegetables 30%
Fruit 15%
Leftoveres 13%
Bakery 9%
Dairy & eggs 7%
Meat 6%
Other 20%
*other includes snacks, staples, drinks, desserts, and oil/fat
Love Food Hate Waste Canada

Why do fruits & vegetables spoil?

Different fruits & vegetables “breathe” differently and so they require different levels of air flow. If a low breather gets too much air, it will dry out. If a heavy breather gets too little, it will quickly start to spoil and mold. All fruits and vegetables release moisture, but it’s when they are sitting in that moisture, spoilage accelerates.  

When we can control moisture and air-flow, we keep fruits and vegetables fresher for longer and extend their useable life, reducing waste and saving money.

The best way to prolong freshness

I’ve tried a lot of different things to keep my fruits & vegetables fresher for longer. I’ve seen the “hacks” and tricks all over the internet and you’ve probably seen them too: mason jars for berries, using a cup or vase of water and put the stems in like you’re stroring cut flowers in the fridge, using a ziplock bag with a paper towel inside to absorb some of the moisture, storing carrots and celery in water…. I’ve tried them all.

comparing results for keeping strawberries fresh in the fridge between a glass jar and a Tupperware FridgeSmart container. The same stawberries in both, stored for 10 days. Results were more spoiled strawberries in the jar and fewer spoiled in the FridgeSmart container.

Hands down, Smart containers have kept fruits & vegetables fresher for longer than any of the hacks or tips I’ve tried. Not only do FridgeSmart containers keep most fruits and vegetables fresher for 2-3 times longer, they also make it simple by showing which setting to use for each kind of fruit and vegetable right on the container– and if you’re anything like me this is huge because you have more than enough to remember already!

Smart Containers

How does FridgeSmart work?

  • Keeps moisture away from your produce to keep it from spoiling – the containers are designed to collect moisture on the underside of the lid and on the inside walls of the container where it can drip into the grooves in the bottom, keeping your fruits & veggies lifted up above the liquid
  • Has an easy to use, adjustable vent to accommodate different air flow needs aka types of “breathers” 
  • Has “feet” on the bottom, so when stacked with other FridgeSmart containers the vents are not blocked and air flows between them
  • Air Flow Chart right on the container that will never wash off takes the guesswork out of which setting to use for each fruit and vegetable
  • QR code for a more comprehensive list of fruits & vegetables and their preferred vent setting

How Does FridgeSmart Compare?

It still impresses me how much longer our fruits and vegetables stay fresh in FridgeSmart containers. Just look at the difference:

Thanks to FridgeSmart, we’ve significantly reduced food waste which has saved us money!

If you’re ready to waste less and save more too, you can get your own FridgeSmart containers by clicking here, or contact me and I’ll help you get the best deal.

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