Temperature in my garage fridge never goes lower than 1 °C, there's a BT digital thermometer in and out the fridge, even if outside temperature can goes lower than -10°C. This is easily explained by the insulation provided by the fridge construction. My opinion is food doesn't need to be put warm, except maybe for some liquids like water. Your idea needs more thinking and maybe improvements.

it's all about oil viscosity,  so  between 40deg and 10 deg ? 10 deg Where the ice cream gets hard again, if you put a  heat source (with or without a temp switch, a thermal disk will do.) on the compressor crankcase to keep the oil viscosity normal it will run year round. ***  It's a bad idea to put food through temperature swings. and deterioration accelerates with every degree increase.  so if the compressor won't run below 40deg, then food is allowed to warm UP to 40 deg?? Me thinks re thinks might be appropriate for safety.  FYI food NEVER stops deteriorating, freezing only slows it down. and as we just can not get food to *** absolute zero, it will never stop deteriorating. 

OK, I hadn't thought of the garage freezer problem beyond needing an alarm so I know if there's a problem. I didn't realize that cold ambient temps out there could cause a problem with cycling. I seem to recall the freezer I bought being "garage rated", but I'm not sure what that means.

Thanks for the reminder to check. Looking forward to your progress on this - might help me sort out some issues. Thanks!