By Keilly Witman KW Refrigerant Management Strategy LLC This is the second article in a three-part series on sustainability and refrigerants. In part I of my series on communicating about sustainability in refrigeration with consumers, I discussed why it is difficult to make refrigeration relevant to stores’ consumers. Notice I said difficult – not impossible. Just because something is difficult [...]
By Keilly Witman KW Refrigerant Management Strategy LLC This is the first article in a three-part series on sustainability and refrigerants. In this day and age, most supermarket companies recognize that their customers care about the environment and their communities. Customers want to spend their money at businesses that share those values. They want to feel good about where they [...]
By Derek Gosselin Hillphoenix Systems Product Manager Today’s grocery shoppers demand more fresh offerings — from cut fruit to prepared meals — and this changes the profitability equation for supermarkets. Fresh sells, but as perishables become a larger percentage of a store’s mix, it’s essential to extend how long those products are fit for sale. That’s why grocers are adding [...]
By Keilly Witman KW Refrigerant Management Strategy LLC People ask me all the time if the EPA is ever going to get off their backs about the refrigerant they use. My answer is always the same: The only way that will happen is if the industry stops using refrigerants that harm the environment. For the first time since the EPA [...]
Hillphoenix congratulates all the 2015 GreenChill Environmental Achievement Award recipients who, along with Hillphoenix, were recognized by EPA Greenchill at the GreenChill Partnership’s annual Achievement Awards on September 29. Hillphoenix, a pioneer in designing environmentally sustainable refrigeration systems, received a 2014-2015 Achievement Award – Store Certification Excellence from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s GreenChill Partnership program. It’s the company’s fifth GreenChill [...]
EPA’s SNAP Phaseout Schedule for Alternative Refrigerants The wait is over. Food retailers and the refrigeration industry were in a holding pattern for months while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considered its next move on alternative refrigerants. Then, in mid-July, a 90-page ruling published in the Federal Register (pp. 42870-42959) confirmed what Hillphoenix and other industry experts had anticipated: Widely [...]
Over the past several years, some notable trends have brought changes to the retail refrigeration space. Grocery stores are getting smaller, fresh-food options are gaining ground at retailers of every size, and ozone-depleting refrigerants continue to be pushed out by natural and sustainable options. At the spot where small-format, fresh-format, and sustainability converge, retailers may find themselves in unfamiliar territory [...]
Last month, we discussed the lack of effective performance baselines for natural refrigeration systems and how that makes it difficult for utilities to provide natural refrigeration incentives. In this article, we’ll talk about the second challenge faced by end users and utilities: the lack of good modeling software for natural refrigeration systems. When seeking incentives from utilities for natural refrigeration, [...]
In 2014, research firm Packaged Facts reported that the average size of supermarkets has been trending smaller since 2006. At the same time, consumers have continued to ask for more fresh and convenient food options, and supermarkets — along with small-format retailers such as drugstores and convenience stores — have responded by increasing their fresh and prepared food selections. And [...]
