Refrigerated display cabinets as the terminal device of the food cold chain logistics play an important role in ensuring the food quality and safety. In this paper a brief overview of recent progress is presented in the open food refrigerated display cabinets from the aspect of air curtain performance, the environment temperature and humidity, the structure optimization of the cabinet body, the problems of evaporator frosting and defrosting, the system energy saving and the application of phase change materials for cool storage, et al. Analyzes the related factors on velocity field and temperature field distribution of food refrigerated display cabinets, and proposes the improvement methods, and from the view of energy conservation, expounds the current research focus and the future development direction of the refrigerated display cabinets. Some existing problems are proposed in the research of refrigerated display cabinets, which can provide reference for further research.