Are your refrigerated cases ready for the busy shopping season ahead?

Even the most carefully planned merchandising strategy can be derailed by a refrigerated case failure. Especially during the holiday season, a case going down can mean lost revenue and a poor in-store experience for shoppers—not to mention the headache of scheduling emergency service calls during the busiest time of the year.

Luckily, your in-store team can take a few simple steps to keep your cases running properly and catch small issues before they become emergencies.

5 Essential Refrigerated Case Maintenance Tasks for Your In-Store Team

As we covered last month, it’s best to schedule your preventive maintenance and inspections with qualified technicians before the height of the holiday season.

But there is a lot your in-store team can do to protect your merchandising strategy, too.

Assign the following tasks to your in-store team regularly throughout the season to ensure your refrigerated cases are operating at peak performance to support your holiday displays.

1. Conduct regular temperature audits.

Local regulations define how often food retailers must perform temperature audits, but it’s especially important during busy times. That’s also exactly when maintenance tasks like this get put off because staff are busy helping customers and keeping shelves stocked.

But consider this: Would you rather have a team member discover your case isn’t maintaining temperatures during a proactive audit, or when a shopper complains that all the turkeys are warm and the egg nog is spoiled?

Develop a schedule for temperature audits, and stick to it.

2. Mind the load line.

Full shelves are key to effective merchandising, but overloading your refrigerated case with product blocks air circulation and compromises your air curtain. That leads to spoiled product, safety concerns, higher energy costs and equipment failure.

Make sure your staff is trained to stock cases to the load line, no higher. Train your team to look for jam-packed frozen and refrigerated cases when they walk the store so they can correct them. Regular load-line audits are great, but creating a culture where your staff is empowered to identify and correct overstocked cases all the time is even better.

3. Check the lights.

Lighting is an underrated merchandising essential, especially in refrigerated cases. Your in-store team may not know they can adjust the lights in your case to showcase products in their best possible light.

Make it a habit to walk the store and adjust case lighting to shine on the front of your product, not the top or back. Poorly positioned lighting casts unappealing shadows and makes displays look unapproachable. It only takes a moment to readjust your lights to make your displays more enticing.

4. Examine self-contained cases.

Self-contained refrigerated cases offer merchandising flexibility and provide an ideal foundation for disruptive merchandising. But during the holidays, when your store is decked out with holiday decor and seasonal signage, it’s easy to unintentionally block the external air screen.

Schedule frequent checks of your self-contained refrigerated cases to ensure product is not blocking the discharge or air return inside the case and that all exterior air intake and exhaust vents are not obstructed. Otherwise, you risk equipment failure and unsafe product temperatures.

5. Inspect case doors.

When inspecting your case doors, your team should look for a few red flags that may indicate a problem. First, ensure that doors shut properly. That’s key to maintaining proper temperatures.

Next, take a look at the door seals. Clean them if they’re dirty, and note whether seals are wearing down or missing. Proactively assessing your door seals means that you can replace them if needed to keep products at safe temperatures and prevent wasted energy.

Finally, for frozen cases, look for heavy condensation or a snowy look on the glass. These signal trouble and often require a replacement seal or a service call.

In-Store Refrigerated Case Maintenance 101: Learn from the Experts

If you need some guidance, our experts created short, bite-sized video clips that teach you refrigerated case and merchandising basics.

Check out the videos below for a few key tips, or visit hillphoenix.com/merchandising-matters/#watch to see them all!

Refrigerated Case Basics: Why Is a Load Line Essential?

Lighting Basics: 1 Simple Way to Make Food in Your Display Case the Star of Your Store

Self-Contained Case Basics: The One Thing You Should Never Do

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Remember, your in-store team can help protect your products, your merchandising strategy and your revenue by taking a few moments to complete essential inspection and maintenance tasks.

Ensure these tasks are completed regularly throughout November and December so your products stay at safe temperatures and your merchandising sets keep enticing shoppers.