Although the Israeli economy has returned to activity without restrictions, the data of a recent consumer survey indicate that more than half of the respondents do not give up home cooking: 58% cited the economic savings as a prominent advantage of cooking at home, and 50% cited health benefits as a decisive factor in favor of home-cooked food .
A survey conducted by the Clinton Trade Group, an importer of electrical brands - Normande, TEKA, Küppersbusch and more, examined the changes that have taken place in Israeli consumption patterns in the field of refrigerators in recent years and found that following this trend of high importance given to home cooking, the demand for refrigerators with a large volume and a width of 120 cm.
Unlike Europeans who buy groceries for dinner on the same day, Israeli food culture is characterized by "big shopping" once a week. Add to that the fact that the average Israeli cooks and eats more at home compared to the rest of the world, as well as the hot Israeli summer that makes it impossible to store almost any raw material outside the refrigerator, and here is the bottom line: the demand for expanding freezing and cooling areas in the Israeli home is constantly increasing. After during the Corona period there was an increase of over 200% in the sales of freezers and refrigerators, the refrigerator and the second freezer became an integral part of many kitchens in Israel. Now, data from the beginning of the year indicate a 27% increase in the purchase of giant refrigerators with a width of 120 cm.
If in the past the refrigerators ranged around the 500-liter volume, this summer a new generation of huge jumbo refrigerators arrived in Israel, which almost doubles the average volume of a standard refrigerator. One of the prominent examples of the trend is the refrigerator model GT850 RMF99250 from the Exclusive series of the TEKA electrical brand which does not allow adjusting the freezing and cooling zones at the push of a button, but displays a huge volume of 840 liters. These are side by side for a refrigerator with a combined door and glass window, a removable beverage drawer and 2 crisper drawers for storing vegetables and fruits at a temperature of up to 12 degrees in a way that helps maintain the freshness of the food.
One of the prominent elements of the professional kitchen that entered the home is the extensive use of stainless steel - a material that, beyond its high-tech appearance, excels in durability and ease of cleaning. Accordingly, all series refrigerators are built with an internal and external stainless steel finish and exhibit a high resistance to corrosion and wear that even earned the series the prestigious Reddot award.
After years in which the refrigerators were covered behind a cabinet front that matches the general kitchen design, now the trend is actually to leave the front of the refrigerator uncovered. "The trend of transparent refrigerators actually pushed out the fashion of the uncovered refrigerator and presented a more practical solution that allows you to see the contents of the refrigerator without opening it, in such a way that consumers connected to it more than the uniform aesthetics presented by the covered refrigerators," elaborates Assi Arbiv, owner of the Clinton Trade Group, the importer of several prominent electrical brands in the field .
The new trend of the summer is a color line that complements the refrigerator which gives a matching touch of color to the electrical appliances in the kitchen. It is about combining a fine line of color on different electrical products. For example, the Küppersbusch brand's series of electrical products comes with a design set of 8 colors that integrate with the front of the refrigerator as well as the front of the oven, the hood, the sinks and other products and allows the user to choose between a complementary line of stainless steel, black chrome, silver chrome, gold, black Velvet, rose gold, hot chili and a gray shade.
Among the new technologies in the field of refrigerators is the No frost technology which allows cooling without "sweating" or a layer of ice forming on the inside of the refrigerator.
In addition, many models of advanced refrigerators now combine two separate cooling systems - allowing one system to continue working even if the other is damaged. "One of the significant innovations in the field of refrigerators are technologies for preserving and extending the life of food," Arbiv elaborates.
Technologies such as Crisper or LongLife extend the life of vegetables and fruits by combining a temperature of 12 degrees with inverter technology that extracts the heat from the refrigerator space in a cyclical cooling process that also prevents bad odors in the refrigerator space.