How to best store fruit

For storing fruit, the golden rule is as follows: fruit containing seeds or pips will keep for longer if stored in the refrigerator. By contrast, you should avoid placing citrus fruits and other tropical fruits, such as bananas, melons or avocados, in the fridge. However, if you are experiencing an invasion of fruit flies, or you have a lot of ripe fruit, there is nothing to prevent you from keeping your tropical fruit in the fridge as well.

The following fruits are resistant to cold temperatures and can be kept in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator: strawberries, apples, apricots, avocados, pears, grapes, figs, raspberries, cherries, kiwis, blueberries, nectarines, blackberries, peaches, plums and damsons.

The following types of delicate fruit should be kept not in the fridge but preferably in a dark, cool place at a temperature of +/- 18 °C: pineapples, bananas, grapefruit, mandarins and tangerines, mangoes, melons, oranges, papayas and citrus fruits.

The following fruits can be left to ripen at room temperature and then placed in the refrigerator: avocados, pears, kiwis, nectarines, peaches, plums and damsons.

The high humidity existing within a refrigerator invariably carries with it a risk of the formation of mould. As soon as any mould starts to form on any food placed in your fridge, throw the food away without delay and carefully clean the refrigerator, so as to prevent other foodstuffs from being contaminated by mould spores.

Apples are best kept in a cool place, in the refrigerator or in the basement (if possible, at a temperature lower than 5 °C) and away from light.

Apples give off ethylene, a gas which speeds up the ripening process in fruits and in vegetables placed close to them. So it’s important to store apples separately.

In optimal conditions, apples that are stored will keep for 2 to 3 months. Make sure that they don’t have any parts that are rotten, and avoid placing them on top of each other; instead, lay them out separately so as to avoid pressure points. You should sort through them at regular intervals and remove any apples that have gone rotten, so as to prevent the others from rotting in turn.

N.B.: Even when kept in the fridge, apples may reduce the shelf life of other vegetables, notably lettuce.