Peering into the fridge only to be greeted by an unappetising odour? Bad smells coming from your refrigerator is certainly enough to put you off your dinner, so how can you get rid of them?

Well, cleaning your fridge regularly is certainly a good place to start, but these helpful hints will keep your fridge free of odours.

Wipe surfaces regularly 

Bottles leak, cartons drip, and greasy hands drop pieces of food… while there’s no substitute for a regular deep clean, wiping surfaces clean quickly if they get dirty will help keep odours at bay.

A solution of one tablespoon of baking soda and half a litre of tepid water makes a great cleaning agent, because let’s face it, we don’t really want strong cleaning chemicals around our food.

Leave an odour absorber in the fridge

You can also leave a small bowl of baking soda in the fridge to absorb bad odours too. Other natural odour absorbers include coffee grounds, white vinegar and oats.

Keep an eye on fresh food

If you tuck your fresh fruit and veg away in a drawer, you may well forget it’s there… by the time you start smelling it, that’s too late!

Be sure to use fresh food before it starts going bad and have a purge of anything that’s on the turn every few days.

Use sealed containers

Some food tastes a lot better than it smells. Ripe cheeses, curries, chilli con carne… all of these are best kept in sealed containers which keep odours in. 

Don’t forget that the appliance itself and the food inside it can absorb odours, so cutting these smells off at the source will help massively in the battle for a funk-free fridge.