A chest freezer opens from the top, so when the lid is lifted the dense cold air largely stays inside instead of spilling out as it does from an upright. This makes chest freezers efficient and good at holding temperature, which is why they dominate frozen storage in Indian shops, dairies, butcher shops and ice cream retail. Lids come in two main types: solid hard-top and glass-top for display.
The trade-off is access. Items at the bottom are hard to reach, and without baskets and a clear system, old stock gets buried. Chest freezers also need manual defrosting on many models, and a door gasket that seals well, especially in monsoon humidity. Commercial units are typically designed to hold around −18 °C or colder, with some reaching much lower temperatures.
A meat shop in Hyderabad might use a large hard-top chest for bulk frozen chicken and mutton, and a smaller glass-top chest at the counter for packaged frozen items customers pick themselves.