That's my thought too.
These fridges may need more complex control for a variety of reasons, but that doesn't mean they have to be connected to _the internet_. To a local network for control, sure.
Put your security measures into the network itself, but I really do feel fridges are another thing which do not need to be IoT devices.
Local network, VPNs, bastion hosts, and so on. It really isn’t that hard.