This Unique $12 Fridge Organizer Will Change the Way You Store Beverages

Some foods just seem to find their home in the fridge. For instance, half-gallon milk containers always go in the bottom bin on my fridge’s door, and cheeses prefer to congregate in the sliding bin beneath the top shelf. However, not all foods have such an easy time navigating the refrigerator. In my fridge, beer bottles and canned drinks like to roam — sometimes the fridge door looks like a good spot, other times it’s the top shelf, but they haven’t found a place where they truly belong.

I suspect that’s about to change, though, because I finally saw a drink organizer that gives cans and bottles a home without taking up too much room in your fridge. This beverage mat from OXO has a ridiculously simple design that accommodates all kinds of cans and bottles — tall, short, skinny, etc. — and stays out of the way when you’re not using it. And at $12, it’s an affordable method to permanently keep your fridge more organized.

This mat has ridges that hold six regular-sized soda or seltzer cans on their sides, plus more if you want to stack them. It also works with plastic and glass bottles, and if you flip it over, you’ll find a set of wider ridges that hold up to four full-size wine bottles. Because it’s made of silicone, it won’t slip around inside your fridge (even if condensation has built up on a shelf), so once you set it in place, you’ll know all your drinks are safe from rolling around or tipping over.

While there are other beverage organizers to choose from, this one is my favorite because it has such a slim design. Plastic bin organizers are fine if you consume a lot of canned drinks and are always fully stocked on them, but if you don’t use them at their full capacity, they just end up taking up space inside your fridge. And, since they have a fixed width, it’s hard to use them to store anything else. With this sleek mat, you can use it as you need to — and when you run low on drinks, other food containers can sit on top of it. Any organizer that works with your space instead of demanding to have its own space is one worth considering.

The best part is that you don’t have to relegate this fridge can organizer to your fridge. Add it to your pantry to secure canned soups, or use it to keep unopened wine bottles organized — it’s so much more small-space-friendly than big wooden wine racks. It’s also a smart and easy way to tidy up a disorganized mini fridge, including the one in your office’s break room. I’m impressed that OXO has once again found a better, more compact way to solve a common household problem — and it doesn’t cost too much, either.

Buy: Refrigerator Beverage Mat, $11.99