Beyond the first-level outcomes of this study, which are necessarily
limited given the relatively small number of participants, we
would like to stress that, to our knowledge, this study was the first
study to experimentally investigate food storage behavior under
controlled and yet naturalistic conditions. The use of videos to
observe the behavior of consumers storing food in a refrigerator
was feasible and provided insights that can be very complementary
to more traditional social surveys or even pictures of consumers’
refrigerators at home.
This study reveals a wide diversity of behaviors for storing food
in the refrigerator. The recommendations from the French Agriculture
and Food Department are clearly not observed or even known.
The main safety issues concern meats, ready-to-eat salads, and
ready-made dough because they are sensitive to contamination
by pathogens.