This happened after the patch but once I replaced the fridge it worked fine and I haven't had any problems. I experienced this glitch in the premade houses already in the game and not in any of the houses I built myself or downloaded from the Gallery.
Someone suggested starting a new game or using the save as feature because some of the new coding from patches isn't present in the older saves. I don't know how true this is but will try and test both these methods.
I also wanted to point out that cooked food from NPCs and caterers cannot be dragged the fridge when you are present in your Sims' house. For example, if your Sim hired a caterer and you want to store the food in the fridge you have to click on each plate and have the Sim carry each plate to the fridge rather than dragging it yourself.
I don't know if the game is supposed to function like this or it is an oversight from the devs.