In the 1920s the electric refrigerator was introduced to Australian consumers as a ‘luxury unit’ for the home. Uptake was very small, and by the mid-1930s industry commentators considered whether these appliances had sufficient sales appeal in their utilitarian appearance, and lack of ‘shapely’ proportions or choice of colour. Such considerations seemed rather remote from the Pacific Islands, where European consumers continued to be presented with the virtues of functional box-like models run on kerosene. In this paper I chart the shifting strategies to market domestic refrigeration in Australia and the Pacific between the 1920s and 1950s, and related ideas about food preservation and consumption. Not simply parallel histories, however, I also draw out some unexpected links as experiences in the Pacific, notably during World War II, informed the marketing of domestic refrigeration in post-war Australia.