US electrical requirements for fridges are somewhat overprovisioned for food safety requirements, the fridge is the most important thing to power as you say. It’s easy to not notice when your fridge has lost power and US food safety law says that 4 hours in a fridge without power is unsafe, so the circuit is arranged where the breaker should never turn off in normal operation. (This is a relatively recent addition to the electrical code, most older houses will have the fridge on a mixed circuit, but that’s the reasoning)
I’m not sure what the typical current draw for a US fridge is but they are much larger than you’re used to. The fridges currently for sale have around 18 to 30 cubic feet interiors (most houses I’ve seen have the larger end of that range), and current draw increases with size. Peak draw for refrigeration is about 4x the typical running draw so I imagine the larger ones do come close to that 15 amp rating when they turn on.
US electrical requirements for fridges are somewhat overprovisioned for food safety requirements, the fridge is the most important thing to power as you say. It’s easy to not notice when your fridge has lost power and US food safety law says that 4 hours in a fridge without power is unsafe, so the circuit is arranged where the breaker should never turn off in normal operation. (This is a relatively recent addition to the electrical code, most older houses will have the fridge on a mixed circuit, but that’s the reasoning)
I’m not sure what the typical current draw for a US fridge is but they are much larger than you’re used to. The fridges currently for sale have around 18 to 30 cubic feet interiors (most houses I’ve seen have the larger end of that range), and current draw increases with size. Peak draw for refrigeration is about 4x the typical running draw so I imagine the larger ones do come close to that 15 amp rating when they turn on.