Bruce Whitehall investigates the latest innovations and products in the refrigeration market in this Catering Update report
Cold rooms bring comfort to hospital
A three-year refrigeration contract, which includes the supply of at least 19 new coldrooms in the first year, has been awarded by Whitbread to Williams Refrigeration. The new coldrooms will feature a specially designed dual compartment room consisting of a combined refrigerator and freezer separated by a moveable partition. This enables one compartment to be extended while the other compartment is reduced in size, thus accommodating any menu alterations quickly. Coldrooms also feature a special energy-saving 'POD System' internal cooler.
Williams has also recently supplied the new Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh with over £600,000 worth of refrigeration equipment in its kitchen, laboratory and teaching areas. The purpose-built kitchen area features five Williams' modular coldrooms and one freezer room for cook-freeze use.
The rooms will also hold fresh vegetables and support the hospital's small special dietary kitchen.
Williams Refrigeration
Up to the chest in cooling power
The King range of chest freezers, claimed to be the UK's widest, has been extended to 10 models in three classes - CLM, DM and C, which relate to different sizes and energy ratings. Latest CLM400 and CM20 freezers are four-star rated with 315 and 185 litres gross capacity respectively. Specifications include fast freeze cabinets with removable divider and defrost warning alarm with adjustable thermostat. Price: (CLM400): £349.
King has also announced a website designed to give specification and recipe information plus local stockist details with links to websites.
www.eking.co.uk
King Chest Freezers
Targeting public sector buyers
With public sector organisations increasingly under pressure to buy quality products and services at value-for-money prices, Foster Refrigerator has made a full range of pre-tendered equipment available through public sector sourcing specialists OGCbuying.solutions, which produces a number of procurement guides specifically for public sector foodservice buyers.
Foster products offered include blast chillers as well as refrigerators, freezers, new Undercounter cabinets and icemakers. Items come with a Price Pledge, a contractual promise which is designed to ensure that customers receive the best possible value-for-money.
www.fosterrefrigerator.co.uk
Foster Refrigerator
Supplying the crowds at Glastonbury
As one of the UK's biggest crowd-pulling music events, June's Glastonbury Festival relies on over 300 food traders to keep visitors fed and watered. That dictates a lot of refrigeration and many traders rely on rented equipment. Rawlings Refrigeration, which has been one of two approved suppliers of temporary coldrooms to food traders for the past 6-7 years, mostly provides ready-built mobile units in four sizes, which can typically be erected and commissioned within an hour. These operate at chilled (+10° to -5°C) or frozen (-15° to - 25°C) and are all totally food safe with non-slip flooring and easy opening, pallet width doors. The Festival had 2000 performances and 140,000 visitors in 2002.
Rawlings has just expanded its choice of refrigeration equipment on rental to include serve over counter units with premium "forced air" specifications. The 6ft long curved glass cabinets are made by Costan and offered on similar flexible rental terms as other equipment.
Rawlings Refrigeration
Turkish delight
A competitively priced range of painted steel display fridges made in Turkey is now available from Wechillit.com including an undercounter 4.7 cu ft single door fridge for small sites with a list price of just £247. The company also sells a countertop "baby" fridge with 1.7 cu ft capacity.
Wine fridges with 4.7 cu ft capacity, choice of glass or solid doors and +7° to +18°C temperature range are available from £269. Full height 13 cu ft single door fridges start at £339 (solid door) and £345 (glass door)
Wechillit.com
Cassette convenience
Latest pull-out cassette units on Sadia upright refrigerated service cabinets feature an improved compressor design, with condensers and evaporators given increased corrosion resistance and improved air flow.
Units slide in and out of cabinet tops, which has the effect of minimising kitchen disruption during repairs and also facilitating the switching over of cabinets from refrigerator to freezer or vice versa.
The Sadia range also includes chef counters in two and three-door versions, undercounter refrigerators in white or stainless steel, glazed door bottle coolers, blast chillers and freezers and the Sadia Solutions selection of modular and custom-built counters and serveries in refrigerated, ambient and combined refrigerated/ambient versions.
www.viscount-catering.com
Viscount Catering
Refurbished cabinets cuts costs over new
As well as selling over 30,000 items of refrigeration equipment from such manufacturers as Carter, Craig Nichol, Arneg, Electrolux, Caravell, Derby, Foster and others, the recently restructured Bond Group has introduced a refurbishment service to provide food display cabinets at little more than half the price of a new cabinet, using existing equipment of any make.
The company's engineers typically retain the existing superstructure but replace or rebuild all other components. A serve-over counter costing £8000 new can be fully refurbished and up graded to an "as new" specification, with full warranty, for around £4500. Refurbishment is carried out at the Bond factory or in situ at the caterer's premises.
www.bond-group.co.uk
The Bond Group
Cool for counters
Clover tabletop water coolers, which are based around standard 19 litre water bottles, now come in a choice of three bright colours - red, green and blue - in translucent plastic. The new versions join the traditional "light grey and white" finish of existing models.
The one piece UV-protected injection moulded cabinets are in two versions: B9A, giving a choice of hot and chilled water, and B9B, offering chilled and ambient water. An optional cup dispenser with fixed hinged lid is available on request.
www.apuro.co.uk
Apuro
Remote monitoring frees up staff
With 250,000 visitors a year buying food in its award-winning tea-room, the Polesden Lacey estate in Surrey used to spend two hours every day taking frequent temperature probes of chilled food and recording data. Operator the National Trust decided to subscribe to the ColdCall remote monitoring service which checks temperature of refrigerated food on a 24 hour per day basis, storing readings once every hour for legislative compliance. If the food or fridge temperature exceeds set limits, a text message alarm is sent to a nominated mobile phone, day or night.
Catering manager Ted Miller says that the change has freed up staff and reduced electricity bills by around 30 per cent. He estimates that the ColdCall service will pay for itself within six months.
www.redcare.bt.com
BT Redcare
Food tags go the distance
Two new versions of the SL150 portable Data Logger introduced by Signatrol take the form of bright yellow 10mm thick "tags" which are impervious to bacteria and thus enable batches of chilled or frozen food to be monitored at all stages during processing, transport and storage. The tags operate with a patented wireless induction technique for rapid set-up and data download.
A convenient hole allows each tag, which is powered by long life internal batteries, to be security sealed to food consignments.
The low-cost model 150T can store around 2000 readings, logging at intervals of from one minute to 255 minutes. The more comprehensive 151T records at intervals as short as 30 seconds and can hold 16000 readings. the stored data can be easily downloaded via a base unit to a PC or laptop.
Signatrol
Menu-driven
The Danfoss Micromon monitoring and alarm unit is specifically designed for smaller cabinet cold stores of the type increasingly used by restaurants and other catering operations. Its menu-driven set-up facilitates easy programming by installers.
Temperature, humidity and pressure sensors can all be wired back to the Micromon unit which can take a maximum of 16 hard-wired inputs. Visual and audible alarms are fitted and information can be stored for approximately one year and printed out either as logs or graphs.
www.dean-wood.co.uk
Dean & Wood
Flexible rooms
Prima-box modular coldrooms from Gram are available in 24 room sizes from 3.5 to 14 cu m and two temperature ranges (-5 to +10°C chilled, and -15 to -25°C freezer). The free-standing internal shelving consists of supports fitted with strong nylon coated wire shelves which are height adjustable. The built-in monoblock refrigeration system is designed for wall mounting inside the room with the evaporator section inside and the compressor section on the external wall. The refrigeration system automatically evaporates the defrost water, thus eliminating the need for an external drain.
www.gram-commercial.com
Gram UK
No wires
A new Japanese-developed remote monitoring system distributed by Holland's Atal uses wireless technology to take regular readings of sensors on refrigeration cabinets, display counters, coldrooms and other temperature-based equipment. It is anticipated that the system will be significantly lower in total cost than hard-wired systems.
Atal
If you've got it
Latest versions of the Evolution SLI multi-deck refrigerated display case are available with brushed rather than circled stainless steel in the top and bottom front panels. The open front cabinets suit sandwiches, cakes and drinks and are available in a choice of two lengths: 990 or 1490mm. Overall depth is 600 mm and height runs to 2080mm with four adjustable height shelves.
www.cre-ltd.co.uk
Carter Retail Equipment
Display for limited space
The Presentation Deli-Display allows caterers to display a variety of salads, quiches and cuts of meat in limited space, with a display area of nearly 2 sq m achieved in a length of 1200mm. Cooling is via blown chilled air.
www.olympic-catering.co.uk
Olympic Catering equipment
Giant ice cream deal with giant
Hailing it as the cornerstone of its ice cream freezer purchase scheme, Cadbury Ice Cream has renewed its contract to supply UK retailers with Coolpoint Rio ice-cream freezers. The cabinets, made in Austria by AHT, combine features such as a low front height for ready access to children with hygiene benefits such as joint-free injected one-piece plastic frame and easy-glide lockable glass lid.
Coolpoint AHT
Pull the trigger
Users of the 8810 portable infra-red thermometer, recently added to the ETI range of non-contact thermometers, simply aim the instrument's laser beam and pull the trigger to obtain a temperature to an accuracy of plus or minus 2° on the digital display. The gun-shaped unit, which is priced at £49.75, can be used with everything from frozen (-20°C) products up to temperatures of 270°C.
Electronic Temperature Instruments
Arctic experience in Polar region
The eight members of a team of explorers which recreated the historic Sir John Franklin expedition to the North-West Passage in 1845 spent two hours in an Aberna freezer room - part of the company's Polar range - to get a feel for living and working in Arctic temperatures. They survived the -23°C inside the room without going to the extremes of Sir John Franklin, who survived one early expedition by eating his own boots.
www.aberna.com
Aberna
Low front design
Use of horizontal scroll compressors on the new Verco Kingston range of integral open chill cabinets permits a low front design (just 350mm) for significantly more merchandising space. Cabinets are made in three normal widths - 1.25, 1.95 and 2.5m - with a standard 2035mm height and depth of 815mm. The Kingston is available with Verco's "integrated styling " and can be finished in customers' corporate colour schemes.
Verco
Environmental disposal scheme hits targets
A "one-year-on" report on a major cabinet disposal operation for UK commercial refrigeration users - introduced in 2002 by three commercial wholesalers including Interlevin Refrigeration - indicates that the scheme was successful in integrating old cabinets, collected on delivery of new units, into a fully documented system.
The scheme involves safe storage, leading to fragmentation of the carcass, safe collection and disposal of any harmful ozone depleting substances (ODS) plus collection of materials for recycling. It has also given users the means to demonstrate full compliance with duty of care obligations.
Interlevin Refrigeration