How to properly store food and avoid waste
Every year, food worth tens of billions of crowns ends up in the bin in Czech households. According to data from STEM/MARK for the Food Bank, the average Czech household throws away roughly 80 kilograms of food per year. It's a number that should give pause to anyone who opens the fridge and wonders what to do with that wilted lettuce or hardening bread. Yet a large part of this waste has nothing to do with buying too much. The problem often lies in how we store food – or rather, how we store it badly.
Proper food storage isn't some science reserved only for professional chefs or restaurant operators. It's a simple everyday skill that saves money, reduces environmental impact, and also helps keep food fresh and tasty far longer than we might expect. All it takes is understanding a few basic principles and changing a few habits we may have grown accustomed to without ever questioning them.
Take a trivial example: tomatoes. Most people automatically put them in the fridge because – well, where else would they go? But tomatoes lose their flavour and texture in the cold. Their cell walls are damaged at temperatures below 12 °C, resulting in a watery, bland tomato that nobody wants to eat and that ultimately ends up in the bin. Yet all you need to do is leave them at room temperature, ideally stem-side down, and they'll stay beautifully aromatic for several days. This small detail illustrates something important: improper storage robs us of food quality even before it robs us of the food itself.
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The fridge is not a universal solution
There is a deeply rooted myth that the fridge is the best place for all food. In reality, it's a bit more complicated. The fridge is great for dairy products, meat, prepared meals, and most vegetables, but certainly not for everything. Onions, garlic, potatoes, avocados (if not yet ripe), bananas, honey, or olive oil – all of these belong outside the fridge. Potatoes convert starch into sugar in the cold, which affects their taste and consistency when cooking. Onions soften in the moist fridge environment and start to mould much faster than in a dry, dark pantry.
While we're on the subject of the fridge, its organisation plays a crucial role. It's not just about what we put in there, but where we put it. The upper shelves usually have a more stable temperature and are suitable for prepared meals, drinks, or yoghurts. The middle shelves are ideal for dairy products and eggs. The bottom shelves, where it's coldest, are meant for raw meat and fish – plus any drips won't contaminate other food. The vegetable drawers are designed to maintain higher humidity, which is why leafy greens, carrots, peppers, or cucumbers belong there.
One of the most common mistakes people make is overpacking the fridge. When the fridge is stuffed to bursting, air cannot circulate freely, the temperature is distributed unevenly, and some foods spoil faster while others may even freeze to the back wall. Less really is more in this case. Regularly keeping track of what's in the fridge also helps avoid shopping blindly and prevents situations where you discover a forgotten pot of sour cream at the back with a use-by date from last month.
Incidentally, speaking of use-by dates – it's important to distinguish between the labels "use by" and "best before." As the State Agricultural and Food Inspection Authority explains, "use by" is a binding date after which the food should not be consumed, as it may pose a health risk. This applies especially to highly perishable goods such as fresh meat, fish, or fresh milk. In contrast, "best before" means the manufacturer guarantees optimal quality until the stated date, but the food may be perfectly fine even after it. A yoghurt two days past its best-before date isn't automatically destined for the bin – just smell it, taste it, and use common sense. Confusing these two terms is one of the biggest reasons for unnecessary food waste in households.
Moving from cold temperatures to room temperature, it's worth paying attention to the proper storage of dry goods. Flour, rice, pasta, legumes, nuts, dried fruit – all of these have their place in the kitchen, but not carelessly left open in their original paper bag. Moisture, light, and air are the three main enemies of dry food shelf life. Transferring them into airtight containers – ideally glass, as it doesn't absorb odours and is easy to clean – can extend the life of flour by several months. Nuts and seeds, which are high in fat and go rancid easily, last significantly longer in the fridge or even the freezer.
And the freezer is a tool that many households still don't use to its full potential. You can freeze almost anything – from sliced bread to blanched vegetables, prepared meals, stocks, or herbs covered in olive oil in ice cube trays. Freezing is one of the gentlest methods of preservation, because unlike heat processing, it retains most vitamins and nutrients. The key is proper packaging: food should be stored in bags or containers with as little air as possible to prevent freezer burn, which isn't harmful to health but does impair taste and texture.
Practical habits that change the game
Let's imagine a specific situation. Mrs Novotná, a mother of two school-age children from Brno, one day calculated how much food her family threw away each week. The result shocked her: approximately two kilograms per week, mostly vegetables, fruit, and bread. She decided to change her approach. She started planning the weekly menu in advance, shopping from a list, and more consistently organising the fridge according to the "first in, first out" principle – meaning newer items go to the back and older ones to the front. Bread that the family didn't manage to eat within two days, she began slicing and freezing. She stopped throwing away wilted vegetables and instead started using them in soups and sauces. Within three months, the amount of wasted food dropped by more than half, and the family's food budget fell by roughly fifteen percent.
This story is not exceptional. It shows that changing habits doesn't require any special equipment or large investments – just a bit of attention and a willingness to think about what we do with food after we bring it home from the shop.
One of the most effective habits is a so-called "mise en place" for the fridge – that is, a regular, ideally weekly, review of its contents. Every Sunday or the day before a big shop, it's worth pulling out everything that's nearing the end of its shelf life and planning dinner or lunch from it for the next day. This approach not only saves food but also inspires more creative cooking – because the need to use up leftovers often leads to surprisingly good combinations you wouldn't have thought of otherwise.
Another practical tip is proper storage of herbs. Fresh parsley, dill, or basil will last barely a few days in the fridge if you just toss them into the drawer. But simply place them in a glass with a little water, loosely cover them with a plastic bag, and put them in the fridge – and they'll last a week or longer. A similar trick works for asparagus or spring onions. These are small things, but they add up to make an enormous difference.
Also worth mentioning is the role of proper wrapping. Cheeses should not be stored in cling film, which suffocates them and accelerates mould growth, but ideally in waxed paper or special bags that allow moisture to pass through. Opened tins should not be left in the can – acidic foods like tomatoes react with the metal and take on an unpleasant taste. Simply transfer the contents to a glass or ceramic container.
As the famous chef and food waste activist Dan Barber once said: "Food waste isn't just a food problem. It's a design problem – the design of our habits, our kitchens, and our thinking." And that's exactly what proper storage is about. It's not about perfection, and it's not about becoming an obsessive kitchen organiser. It's about a conscious approach to what we have and respect for food that deserves to be eaten, not thrown away.
The ecological dimension of all this cannot be overlooked. According to the UN (UNEP Food Waste Index), approximately one billion tonnes of food are thrown away worldwide each year, representing roughly eight to ten percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Every apple that rots in the bin instead of on a plate carries behind it a water footprint, energy consumed in growing, harvesting, transporting, and refrigerating it. By storing food so that it lasts longer, we're not just making a gesture towards our own wallets – we're taking a real step towards a more sustainable way of life.
That is precisely why it makes sense to think about food storage not as a boring household chore, but as one of the simplest ways to live more responsibly. There's no need to change everything at once. Just start with one step – perhaps by moving your tomatoes from the fridge to the kitchen counter tonight and noticing how differently they taste tomorrow. And then perhaps you'll add another step, and another. Because every piece of food that ends up on a plate instead of in the bin is a small victory – for us, for our families, and for the planet.
