Natural refrigeration is a challenging sustainability issue for consumers
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 shop, so they want to know that their grocery store is helping to make their community a better place. Given these facts, and given the enormous progress that many supermarket companies have made in reducing the environmental impact of their [...]
Merchandising Tip: Ice without the hassle
Merchandising seafood without ice saves labor hours and makes clean up quick and easy. Here’s how to get the look of ice without the time and expense. For a free merchandising consultation, visit www.hillphoenix.com/designhelp.
CO2 offers unexpected benefit: less product shrink
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 doors to refrigerated display cases and employing new, moisture-retaining cooling technologies like Hillphoenix’s Coolgenix cases in the meat department. But there’s another product-shrink solution that comes as a bonus prize in a carbon dioxide-based refrigeration conversion: consistent cooling. Traditional hydrofluorocarbon-based [...]
Merchandising Tip: Create a visual focal point
Want to attract more customers to your high-margin meat and seafood departments? Put the focus on the product. Coolgenix conductive refrigeration technology protects the integrity of meat and seafood, so your product is moist, colorful and visually appealing to your customers.
Future-Proof Your Refrigeration
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 started regulating refrigerants in supermarkets, it is possible for a supermarket to operate using 100% natural refrigerants. With the use of CO2, we have a refrigerant that is safe for the ozone layer and for our climate. The EPA’s refrigerant [...]
To understand the future of commercial refrigeration, look to CO2’s past
By Derek Gosselin Hillphoenix Systems Product Manager Using carbon dioxide as a refrigerant seems like a new solution to today’s challenge of lowering the global warming potential of commercial refrigeration systems. But, as industry researcher James M. Calm has documented, the use of CO2 as a refrigerant actually stretches back to 1866. In subsequent decades CO2, ammonia and other early refrigerants took a backseat to organic fluoride-based cooling compounds. The first among them was synthesized dichlorodifluoromethane, or R-12, developed in the late 1920s. In 1930, fluorocarbon refrigerants were introduced to the market and quickly became the standard. It took us [...]
Hillphoenix supports Coolgenix customers with onsite training
By Derek Gosselin Hillphoenix Systems Product Manager Using carbon dioxide as a refrigerant seems like a new solution to today’s challenge of lowering the global warming potential of commercial refrigeration systems. But, as industry researcher James M. Calm has documented, the use of CO2 as a refrigerant actually stretches back to 1866. In subsequent decades CO2, ammonia and other early refrigerants took a backseat to organic fluoride-based cooling compounds. The first among them was synthesized dichlorodifluoromethane, or R-12, developed in the late 1920s. In 1930, fluorocarbon refrigerants were introduced to the market and quickly became the standard. It took us [...]
The Shrinking Supermarket: 6 Essentials to Designing Small-Format Grocery Stores
The trend toward smaller stores is getting bigger. Small-format dollar stores and drug stores now claim about half of consumers’ short shopping trips, according to market researcher IRI. Meanwhile, traditional supermarkets are netting just 25 percent of those in-and-out sprees, IRI reports. These statistics reflect a shift in consumers’ definition of convenience. The all-in-one big box is losing its allure. These days, on-the-go consumers would rather make more frequent trips to smaller stores where they can get what they want and be on their way. In this environment, supermarkets still have an edge because they’ve got the product mix and [...]
Does your meat department need a makeover?
Want to attract more customers to your high-margin meat and seafood departments? Start by standing where they do — in front of your refrigerated display cases. Then ask yourself a few questions: Is your attention stolen by crowded signs, melting ice, visible cleaning equipment or other distractions? Does lighting give meat an off-putting, brown or grayish hue? Does seafood look slimy, rather than moist? Does product look dry around the edges? Do employees have to turn their backs on you to weigh and wrap product? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you need a meat department [...]
Make Utility Rebates Part of Your Energy Improvement Efforts
By Jonathan Tan, VP Energy Services The AMS Group, Hillphoenix In the commercial building space, grocery stores rank #1 for energy intensity, using more energy per square foot than even health care facilities. As consumer demand for more fresh and frozen foods grows, energy intensity will too, with more store space devoted to refrigerated and freezer cases. Improving energy efficiency is imperative to protect grocers’ already thin profit margins. End-use energy is the second highest operating expense after labor for food retailers, and the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that every dollar saved in electricity has the same impact on [...]