Article

Refrigeration options expand beyond cooling

Manufacturers offer solutions from colder hold temperatures to above-store reporting.

May 26, 2009

Refrigeration manufacturers have been hit with a variety of government regulations that require them to meet not only tighter food safety protocols and energy-efficiency standards but also the phaseout of Freon R-22 as a refrigerant.

 

At the same time, quick-service operators are increasingly demanding ‘greener' equipment as they face rising energy costs, tighter budgets and pressure to make their own operations more energy efficient.

 

"Five years ago, people talked about energy efficiency because they should be looking at it," said Leland Smith, Emerson Climate Technologies, refrigeration division. "But (now) there appears to be a real level of interest in it among foodservice consultants and end users."

 

The industry has responded with a multitude of solutions, from more efficient compressors and alternative refrigerants to energy-management systems. Such equipment provides costs savings with more efficient operations, and some states offer energy rebates for QSRs purchasing energy-efficient equipment.

 

Still, that doesn't mean operators are willing to pay more upfront for such products. John Davis, business development manager with Traulsen, said he has noticed that foodservice operators are trending away from requiring proprietary equipment as they opt for a lower price point.

 

"Their tastes are becoming more generic, generally speaking," Davis said. "It's always all about price, but it's really important right now."

 

Here are a number of developments in the refrigeration industry:

 

Energy efficient compressors

 

In no other part is there the potential to save or lose energy in refrigeration equipment as the compressor. Not only is it power hungry, but also it tends to be maintenance heavy.

 

Emerson Climate Technologies has continued to improve its Copeland Scroll compressor to allow its partner refrigeration manufacturers to offer more reliable and energy-efficient applications.

 

Copeland Scroll compressor

The Copeland Scroll uses two spirals to continually compress gas rather than a fixed cylinder and piston in traditional reciprocating compressors. This results in 20 percent more energy efficiency as well fewer breakdowns. The scroll compressor also is able to maintain more consistent temperature levels, both of which are plus in QSR walk-in and reach-in applications, Smith said.

 

The compressor's compact size and durability makes it especially attractive to soft serve ice cream and frozen beverage applications, he said. Because of the way that equipment is used, it cycles on and off frequently, which is "devastating to traditional compressors," Smith said. The scroll compressor, however, is designed to handle such cycling.

 

Energy management

 

As equipment manufacturers develop products with digital controls, software programs have followed with the ability to gather and communicate data from those devices. Such data is especially helpful in light of increasing scrutiny on food safety, said Matt Lauck, Emerson Climate Technologies, retail solutions division.

 

"It's not so much that the product is cold, you really need to know the temperatures and how it's being held to make sure it's safe," Lauck said.

 

A number of refrigeration manufacturers offer such solutions, including Emerson's E2 energy-management system. The system compiles data from restaurant equipment, noting any high temperature alarms or open door alerts. With Emerson's Intelligent Store, each piece of equipment can be integrated to allow communication between them as well as gather data from them.

 

Lauck said he sees such integrated energy-management systems changing restaurant operations just as the advent of point-of-sale systems did for retail in the 1970s. Such systems allow operators to pinpoint where equipment is wasting energy like POS systems allow operators to calculate menu and food costs down to the product level.

 

"It's the (desire to have) information that we really see is the key trend as well as being able to reduce energy in stores," he said.

 

Multiunit operators especially are drawn to energy-management software for its above-store reporting capability, said Angelo Grillas, director of marketing for Electrolux Professional, which has developed the Electrolux Kitchen Intelligence System (EKIS).

 

EKIS gathers energy and operating data from Electrolux's SMART refrigeration equipment as well as other electronic kitchen systems.

 

"Now you have the ability from one remote location or headquarters to monitor the performance of all your refrigerators," Grillas said.

 

Rapid chilling

 

Refrigeration manufacturers also are responding to the trend for QSRs to move to staged food preparation. Traulsen's Davis said he has seen more limited-service restaurants having kitchen staff prepare most of a day's worth of food product ahead in order to bring it to temperature during busy times.

 

Traulsen has developed a full-sized undercounter quick chiller, a scaled down version of a blast chiller to effectively bring cooked food through the food-safety danger zone (135 to 41 degrees). Large-scale restaurants and institutions tend to rely on blast chillers, but QSRs don't need their complexity and reporting capabilities, Davis said.

 

The quick chiller offers the same rapid cooling capabilities at a cheaper cost because it does not have the temperature probe monitors or printers that blast chillers do.

 

"We've given them the food-safety performance with a similar operating system that also requires less training," he said.

 

Code BLU

 

With the phaseout of hydrochlorofluorocarbons used as refrigerants moving to a 75 percent reduction in developed countries by 2010, manufacturers also are looking at alternative refrigerants.

 

One such alternative is Kairak's BLU, a chilled glycol refrigerant developed to replace Freon. The food-grade glycol is dyed blue to allow for easy leak identification.For QSRs, Kairak first developed BLU to cool the exposed rail and evaporator coil in the base of its prep tables.

 

Steve Asay, vice president of sales and marketing for Kairak, said the Kairak BLU line offers a number of advantages to other refrigerants, especially systems that still rely on freon. For one, BLU uses Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) plastic resin piping instead of copper, reducing the likelihood of leaks from bad solders.

 

While traditional compressors cycle off upon reaching a certain pressure or temperature, the BLU refrigerant is continually flowing by use of a pump. Still, Kairak's BLU prep tables have fewer components than a unit that relies on a compressor, meaning less maintenance.

 

BLU's continual flow results in consistent — and colder — temperatures with less likelihood of compressor breakdown. Those colder temperatures are reached without danger of the product freezing or ice build up.

 

"Because it's flowing, it's not giving the ability for the ice to build up on the chiller plates or on the perimeter of the refrigerator," Asay said.