How your chest freezer could save you hundreds each year in groceries

For food sovereignty advocate and Hunting with Tui star Tui Keenan, one household item underpins everything she hopes to achieve in her Tairāwhiti-Gisborne community – the chest freezer.

As an avid hunter, Keenan (Ngati Porou) keeps her freezer stocked with venison, goat and beef she's either killed herself or sourced from a local farm, and helps teach other locals to hunt and fill their freezers too.

She sees families living with food poverty every day, and believes the situation is likely to get worse.

"A chest freezer definitely helps, because you can buy everything in bulk and store it."

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Clearance bread at the supermarket, "grab a whole lot, chuck it in the freezer"; milk and cheese, spinach that "grows like wild in your garden" are all good options.

When vegetables are on special at the supermarket, buy them in bulk and freeze them. Summer fruits and berries all work great in the freezer.

"It's about changing mindsets and getting into that movement of freezing everything," says Keenan.

According to Wellington city Council, avoidable food waste costs the average household nearly $599 a year. If freezing unused food and leftovers cut that by even 25%, that's a saving of $150 per year, but being mindful of food storage and use with your freezer, could cut food waste by 50% ($300), or more.

By comparison, Consumer NZ puts the cost of running a new 164 litre chest freezer at 20c per day, or $109.50 a year. A 300l vertical freezer costs about 40c a day, or $219 per year. So whatever way you cut it, you’ll still be ahead if you’re freezing food.

Many New Zealand households have an old chest freezer lurking in the garage.

"Old freezers are less energy efficient, and this means they cost more to run," says Jessica Walker of Consumer NZ.

"As a point of comparison, a typical fridge today uses 40% less power than a similar fridge from 20 years ago due to efficiency improvements. We found the typical garage fridge adds about $200 per year to electricity bills."

The location of the freezer is also important – it should be placed somewhere it can manage temperatures well. Keeping a freezer in a garage, or another location which experiences significant temperature variations, can result in higher running costs because the appliance must work harder to maintain its temperature.

Depending on how well you prepare the food beforehand, it might be possible to store some food for up to six months or longer.

Some food, like broccoli, peas and cauliflower, will need to be blanched and snap chilled before it's frozen – this removes enzymes that will make the vege go mushy when it's thawed, while meat should be vaccum sealed, but Keenan says there are lots of guides to preparing food for freezing online.

As a general rule – the fresher the food, the better it will keep in the freezer; smaller portions freeze faster, which means less freezer burn where ice crystals form inside the food and damage it; remove as much air (and moisture) as possible from the container – vacuum sealing is best; make sure the plastic bag or container is sealed tightly.

With food costs rising, Keenan sees many Kiwis wanting to put that extra time and care into preserving food.

"It's really easy to do, it's just getting into a new mindset of setting aside time to be able to do all of this," Keenan says.

According to Consumer NZ there are pros and cons to both vertical and chest freezers, and it pays to see what kind will suit your family better.

Vertical freezers take up less room than chest freezers and may make accessing the food easier. They are more expensive to buy, however, and a side of beef or other large cuts of meat will need to be fully processed before you store it.

Keeping a chest freezer organised might be slightly more difficult than the more shallow-shelved vertical freezers, but it is possible to do, using freezer bags and chilli bins to keep items separate and easy to lift out, to get to items at the bottom of the freezer.

It's also a good idea to keep a freezer inventory, with the dates items were frozen, and the area they were stored in, next to your freezer.

As costs rise, and belts tighten, there's a satisfaction in knowing your freezer is full, and you’re sorted for the next three to six months, says Keenan.

"It's a real hunter-gatherer mindset. I think about my Māori ancestors, they'd go eeling once a year and preserve that catch for a whole year. They'd just follow the seasons. So it's going back to our roots, but in a modern way."