The bonus is that if you use the fridge and the flower arranging table from seasons for produce and floral ingredients respectively, then as long as you're on your lot, you'll be considered to have those on hand for making potions. Unfortunately this doesn't apply to chests. I also haven't tested it with fish as at the moment all the fish I have are foul and the game won't let me put foul fish in the refrigerator (I had been keeping the goldfish for bait prior to ROM...) so when you do need to go rummaging around for emeralds or baconite, those are the only things you need to try to find.
I've been toying with adding an aquarium to my spellcaster lab to keep fish in. And you can buy goldfish directly that way. :)