London - Makers of fridges and freezers are misleading customers over the amount of food they can hold, consumer experts said on Thursday.
On average the capacity of the appliances is exaggerated by a third, a Which? investigation found.
The worst models overstate the amount they can hold by the equivalent of five bags of shopping.
It is because manufacturers measure the volume of the compartments once the shelves have been removed.
Which? said: "This would be fine if we were in the habit of filling our fridges and freezers with cartons of orange juice stacked one on top of each other. But real people don’t shop like that, which makes the cubic volume of the appliance almost meaningless."
The consumer group looked at more than 500 fridge freezers on sale in Britain that is has tested since 2016. "The worst, from Sharp, overstated its capacity by 55 percent. More than half the claimed storage was dead space. But this is an industry-wide issue," it said.
Brands such as Miele, Logic and Fridgemaster overstated volumes by the least, but that was still 29 percent more than claimed.
It advises fridge freezer buyers to look for evenly spaced shelves that can be adjusted to suit their shopping habits. "No wonder it’s a chore to pack away all your food after a shop. Some of these volume claims are a load of cold air," Which? added.
"The placement of the drawers and shelves have as much of an impact on the storage capacity of your fridge freezer as its physical dimensions. When we measure storage capacity we leave everything in place and give the amount of space you can actually use for storing groceries.
"A fridge freezer that can store the most food is not necessarily the one with the biggest dimensions. There are many more-compact fridge freezers that punch above their weight when it comes to food storage. A more compact fridge freezer will save you energy too. That’s great for your wallet and the environment.
"If you’re looking to buy a large fridge freezer, make sure it can actually store as much as it appears – or if a small number of shelves and poor spacing make its volume claims out of whack with reality."