What kind of food should be stored in a refrigerator’s “snack pan” drawer

equipmentfood-safetyrefrigeratorstorage-method

(This may be a silly question, but I'll ask anyway since I am curious about this.)

We have an older fridge and it has a drawer labeled "snack pan." I'm not sure how to understand "snack" here.

  • What is a snack pan refrigerator drawer intended to hold? Is it primarily for deli meats? Or else should deli meats go in the "chilled meat compartment"? What else goes in a snack pan?

  • Is the benefit of a snack pan drawer to simply provide a place for smaller/shorter items to keep the shelves free for other things, or does food being in snack pan affect the food differently (such as how the chilled meat compartment is colder?)

I tried searching Google already, but all I ended up with were pages of replacement parts, repair instructions, and a few spammy links. Sadly, there was nothing truly informative. So here I am.

Best Answer

I believe that "snack drawers" tend to be the same temperature as the rest of the refrigerator and really just exist as a place for you to corral small items/kid-friendly foods. I know some people that put pudding, cheese sticks, etc. in their snack drawer without issue.