Upright Freezers

With groceries becoming more and more expensive, stocking up and freezing essentials like bread, meat, and vegetables is one way to reduce your weekly or monthly food costs. You can give yourself the room for extra food storage by choosing from the wide variety of upright freezers on sale.

What is an upright freezer?

An upright freezer is a large appliance that can keep large amounts of food frozen, so it stays fresher, longer. Store meats, vegetables, fruits, frozen dinners, and more for months or even years.

Resembling refrigerators, they have a large front door and include shelves, bins, and baskets for easily organizing different foods. Most commonly finished in white or stainless steel, they can be as small as 3.2 cubic feet or as large as 21.3 cubic feet.

What is the difference between an upright freezer and a chest freezer?

Both upright freezers and chest freezers store large amounts of food for long periods of time, but they are designed differently.

An upright freezer stands upright, taking up less floor space, making it ideal for apartments and smaller homes or areas. Vertical shelves, door bins, and baskets help organize a variety of food for easy retrieval. Interior LED lights make food retrieval easier as well.

With some upright deep freezers, you can regulate the temperature to create soft freeze zones for thawing meat, for example. Some can even be converted to refrigerators when needed. A frost-free upright freezer with an auto defrost mode helps prevent freezer burn. For freezing lots of different types of food, an upright freezer is a good option.

Chest freezers, meanwhile, are better for larger rooms or spaces like a basement or garage since they are shorter and wider and take up more floor space. While they have the same storage space, you have to dig for the items you want. Some newer models, however, include bins and drawers to help make storage neater.

You need to bend over to place items inside or take them out, as well as for cleaning which can be awkward for shorter people, or those with mobility issues versus an upright. And you need to manually defrost chest freezers.

Chest freezers are great if you want to store large amounts of the same type of food, like freezer-packed fresh meats or pre-cooked and packaged dinners. They are also more energy efficient and cheaper.

What features should you consider in an upright freezer?

If it will be in a central area, like a secondary kitchen or basement, find one that looks nice and that fits in the space: do you need a large one, or just a mini upright freezer?

See how everything is organized to ensure it can accommodate the items you will most likely want to store, from square-shaped frozen pizza boxes to upright juice containers or awkwardly shaped packages of meat. Adjustable and removable shelves are useful for accommodating different items, along with sizable bins.

An automatic defrost option, external temperature controls via LCD panel, a lock and key to prevent kids or thieves from getting inside, and a long power cord for versatility in placement are all appreciated features. If you want a second fridge at times, find one that can convert to a refrigerator.