The Style Sisters reveal the common mistake people make when storing food in the fridge – and how to avoid it

A tidy kitchen is something we all enjoy, but what about a tidy fridge? This tiny piece of kitchen real estate can quickly become over run so the organising duo the Style Sisters have revealed how they double the space available.

Wickes has partnered with celebrity organising and styling duo, the Style Sisters – comprised of Charlotte Reddington and Gemma Lily – to share their top tips for decluttering and how to organise kitchen cupboards.

The partnership comes as new research by Wickes reveals that most homeowners and renters alike say having an organised kitchen makes them calmer, with almost a third of Brits claiming that a disorganised kitchen makes them stressed.

Speaking to Ideal Home, we grilled Charlotte and Gemma on their top kitchen storage ideas and their best advice on organising a fridge and freezer to double the available storage space, prolong its shelf life, and ultimately reduce waste.

The Style Sisters tips for organising a fridge and freezer

The organising and styling duo revealed that the biggest mistake they often see people make when putting things away in the fridge and freezer is not removing excess packaging.

For the fridge, Gemma advises decanting things and opting for airtight storage containers. 'These will allow you to get a longer shelf-life, especially if you wash food like vegetables before putting them in an airtight container, as opposed to keeping them in the plastic packaging.'

'Again, if you decant your fruit, for example, into an airtight container, you can get more in that as opposed to keeping the big bulky packaging.'

On the other hand, when storing food in a freezer, Charlotte says, 'You might have seen it online, but a lot of people take the meat out of the packet and put them into vacuum-packed storage bags, labelling the date it's gone in, and then putting it into the freezer.'

If you have a small kitchen with a small fridge, this is an especially good hack to make sure you maximise the most of small kitchen storage ideas.

'You should also be checking your freezer frequently,' continues Charlotte. 'Because really, you're not meant to freeze food for longer than three months but people do.' Therefore, being organised with what you're putting in the freezer will make the world of a difference in keeping an organised and always clean kitchen.

As well as removing excess packaging and decanting your food per the duo's recommended tips for prolonging shelf life and keeping an organised freezer and fridge, they also named another culprit: overbuying.

'We recommend just buying as and when and planning your week on what you want to buy for your meals,' begins Charlotte. Chiming in, Gemma says, 'I think sometimes we have buying habits. For example, sometimes I go food shopping and buy what I would normally buy when actually, I'm not in two nights this week, so why have I just done that?'

'So, being really mindful about your week and what's coming up, what you need, and what you're going to use will help you be less wasteful,' assures Gemma.

Touching on the campaign with Wickes, Charlotte and Gemma say, 'We're excited because organisation is what we do and this campaign has allowed us to delve that bit deeper and work closely with the design team at Wickes.'

'We've found that once we've implemented these systems into our client's homes they now can't live any differently. We've done a lot of client's homes, wardrobes, and kitchens and by the end of the day, they're asking when we can come back to do more.'

Concluding, they say, 'I think people underestimate the powerful mental and calming impact being organised in the home has. You don't have to be an extreme TikTok or Pinterest version of organised. It just means: let's declutter what isn't serving you, what's taking up space, causing you stress, and let's put a system in place that works for you and your lifestyle. Once you've experienced it, you can't go back.'