Put Grocery List on This Fridge and It Goes Shopping

Frigidaire has a cool new idea when it comes to refrigerators.

The ScreenFridge, a prototype refrigerator that makes its debut today at a New Orleans trade show, is outfitted with a computer, a flat-panel touch screen and a bar code scanner to enable grocery shopping without leaving the kitchen.

Users can make a shopping list by scanning the items they want to buy. Then the computer dials up a grocery store, transmits the order and pays via credit card. The groceries could then be delivered to the customer’s front door.

“We were trying to figure out how consumers are going to want to be conducting their shopping in years to come,” said Clay Calhoun, a Dallas-based marketing and business development executive with ICL, the British information technology company that developed the fridge.

In addition to shopping, the ScreenFridge can also be used to check e-mail, pay bills online and watch TV, Calhoun said. Frigidaire, a unit of Sweden’s AB Electrolux, and ICL will decide whether to mass-produce the fridge by the end of the year.