What can the contents of your fridge tell us about society? More than you might think.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Fridgeonomics—a concept that links economic trends to the items in our refrigerators. What began as a simple observation has evolved into a powerful framework for understanding consumer behaviour. But the story starts much earlier, during ethnographic fieldwork in Aurangabad, India, over a decade and a half ago.
From Fridgeonomics 1.0 to 2.0
While researching low-income households, I asked a seemingly straightforward question: If you had more money, how would your diet change? The answer was consistent: I wouldn’t change anything. Instead, people said they would spend the extra money on their children’s education, savings, or investments. This response contradicted the well-documented shift in diets that typically accompanies socioeconomic change.
To test this, I gave a woman the equivalent of $10 in rupees and accompanied her to the supermarket. Despite her earlier claim, she purchased items she didn’t have at home—Cadbury chocolate, Coca-Cola, and other indulgences. These were the same items I had seen earlier in the fridge of a family one socioeconomic group above hers. It became clear: the refrigerator is a mirror of people’s attitudes and desires.
This insight led to the development of Fridgeonomics 1.0, a framework that identified products associated with different socioeconomic classes. Working-class fridges were efficiency devices, storing ingredients and pre-prepared foods that allowed women to work longer hours. Middle-class fridges included indulgences like chocolate, ice cream, and soft drinks—items they had always wanted but couldn’t afford. Affluent homes leaned toward health-conscious options like low-fat yogurt, cheese, and freshly squeezed fruit juice.
Yet, while we could track these trends, we couldn’t fully explain them. Something was missing.
Beyond Income: The Role of Values
Over the past eight years, at Trinetra, we’ve expanded this approach by incorporating cultural values as the missing link. This deeper understanding turns fridges into holistic indicators of societal change.
Returning to the woman in Aurangabad, I now realize she was telling the truth. Her purchases weren’t new desires; they reflected longstanding aspirations—status and belonging—that the extra rupees simply enabled her to fulfil.
These desires are shaped by shared societal values—power, respect, autonomy, belonging, tradition, achievement, and more. Understanding these values is key to decoding consumption patterns.
Money doesn’t create new desires; it enables people to realise existing ones. These desires are shaped by shared societal values—power, respect, autonomy, belonging, tradition, achievement, and more. Understanding these values is key to decoding consumption patterns.
Take Sneha, a woman in India whose fridge has changed unpredictably over the past decade. Although her income has risen, her food choices don’t follow a simple trajectory from working-class to middle-class consumption. Instead, she selects items reflecting a blend of values: ready-made foods (achievement), branded cheeses (status), low-fat products (health), and international flavours (cosmopolitanism). Her changing fridge isn’t just a function of income—it reflects a cultural shift toward achievement, autonomy, and wellness.
Values Shape Consumption More Than Income
Fridgeonomics 1.0 provided a valuable framework, but it lacked the depth of cultural understanding that an anthropological perspective on values offers. Values link individual preferences to broader social structures, making them powerful predictors of change.
The best way to uncover values is not through direct inquiry (or surveys) but by examining objects and behaviours that symbolize them.
Direct questions about people’s desires often yield vague or misleading answers—remember the woman in Aurangabad. The best way to uncover values is not through direct inquiry (or surveys) but by examining objects and behaviours that symbolize them.
For example, standing in line, we might struggle to articulate our societal values. But when someone cuts ahead, our indignation reveals the importance we place on fairness and equality. Similarly, food choices serve as tangible expressions of underlying values.
Competing and Evolving Values
Societies juggle multiple values that can shift in importance. Consider the rising prominence of environmental sustainability in Europe, which increasingly prioritizes conscious consumption over personal freedom and indulgence.
Value hierarchies are not fixed—they evolve across cultures, contexts, and time.
Value hierarchies are not fixed—they evolve across cultures, contexts, and time. By analysing these shifts, we can better predict future consumer trends.
Tracing Value Transformations Through Fridges
Individuals shape and reproduce social values through everyday transactions. Work, for example, is often a means to achieve autonomy, rather than an end in itself. Similarly, the items in our fridge serve as more than sustenance—they reflect aspirations.
Take Amina in Indonesia, a 28-year-old mother balancing traditional caregiver roles with work. Her fridge is filled with time-saving products: single-serving coconut milk pouches, squeezable yogurt, frozen shoestring potatoes, and pre-mixed spices. These choices reflect a shifting social trend—women’s increasing need for efficiency as they engage in more activities outside the home.
Likewise, in a Brazilian favela in Salvador, Bahia, a social influencer’s fridge contains shrimp, eggs, chicken, tamarind juice, low-fat cheese, and fresh produce. His selection is driven not by wealth, but by a deeply ingrained value for health and self-improvement.
... academics in semiotics and anthropology call qualisigns—objects that simultaneously share qualities with and symbolize our values.
The objects behind our refrigerator door are concrete expressions of our values. They resemble what academics in semiotics and anthropology call qualisigns—objects that simultaneously share qualities with and symbolize our values.
Think about fresh, locally grown vegetables and fruits. These ingredients are not only healthy but also symbolise healthiness. By having them, we show our view of them as desirable and our willingness to embody those qualities—in this case, to become healthy individuals.
Why AI Alone Is Not Enough
Values are the true lens through which we should examine consumer culture. However, values—and their manifestations—are highly contextual. Fixed models and AI-driven data analysis cannot fully capture these dynamics.
The significance of a product lies in how it fits into a person’s value transformation chain—the process by which goods become means of achieving higher aspirations. To grasp this, we must meet people, understand their contexts, and analyze their choices holistically.
Ethnography remains indispensable in tracking shifting values and predicting trends.
Fridgeonomics 2.0: A Predictive Framework
Fridgeonomics 2.0 operates in two stages:
1. From the fridge to values: Tracing consumption back to the underlying values that drive choices.
2. From values back to the fridge: Using these insights to predict future consumption patterns.
By identifying evolving values, we can anticipate trends not just in food but across industries, shaping strategies in finance, social development, policy, and beyond.
Understanding values isn’t just about what’s in the fridge today—it’s about what will be there tomorrow.
Trinetra Investment Management disclaimer: This material has been prepared by Trinetra Investment Management LLP (“Trinetra”) for information purposes only and it is not intended to be relied upon as a forecast or research. While the information herein is considered to be correct, no representation or warranty can be given on the ultimate accuracy or completeness of such information.
Unless otherwise specified, all views expressed are those of Trinetra. These views reflect current economic and market conditions, which are subject to change.
This material, or any views or opinions expressed herein, does not amount to an investment advice nor does it constitute a solicitation or a recommendation to buy, sell or invest in any financial product, investment structure or instrument, to enter into or unwind any transaction or to participate in any particular trading strategy.
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