New Cases Cut Costs And Increase Packout

By TONY SEIDEMAN

Technology enhancements are giving retailers a strong case for new cases.

New high-tech display cases are providing retailers with increased packout, less shrink and improved product visibility while reducing energy costs.

While virtually all of the technologies have been around for some time, they are coming together in ways that will help retailers light their products more attractively, keep a closer watch on the conditions in their display cases and save significant amounts of money tied to energy costs and better quality control.

New tools gaining attention include white light LEDs (although the jury is out here), microchips integrated into seemingly traditional compressors, and networks that virtually treat display cases as if they’re just another way station on the global Internet.

Manufacturers caution that some technology is still evolving, but note that retailers should be on the lookout for valuable new capabilities. Here are a few of the developments that are grabbing the most attention:

Reductions in power consumption. Display cases eat a lot of energy. A study by Southern California Edison estimated that refrigerated and frozen food display cases account for more than half the total energy use of the average grocery store. With power costs rising nationwide at double-digit rates, conserving energy is vital.

Tyler Refrigeration of Niles, Mich., has made increasing efficiency a top priority. Working with parent company and air conditioner and refrigeration equipment manufacturer Carrier, the company developed its new T/C Coil System.

Tyler estimates that the payback time for merchandisers using the coil system is just six months, with energy savings of up to 21% annually. In addition, the system uses 11% less refrigerant than conventional ones.

One of the biggest maintenance burdens of dealing with refrigerated and frozen food casings is frost accumulation. Since T/C coils are smaller and more efficient, they create dramatically less frost than conventional ones.

“By reducing the defrost time on dairy and meat cases, and by virtually eliminating the defrost time on produce cases, Tyler’s High Performance T/C Coil merchandisers reduce product temperature swings and increase product shelf life,” the company says.

“The biggest thing with regard to frozen food is energy,” says Jim Knudsen, vp of sales and marketing at Kysor/Warren, the Columbus, Ga.-based subsidiary of Enodis, PLC. “We’re under continued pressure to improve the energy efficiency of cases while giving the proper merchandising approach, facings and cubic capacity,” he says.

As a result, the cases Kysor/Warren sells today have 15% more capacity but use 20% less energy than a year ago, he says. Reasons for this include redesign of refrigeration systems and evaporators and careful management of air curtains within the cases.

Efficiency and merchandising flexibility. Retailers say display case technology is a top priority when it comes to designing and refurbishing stores. Hill PHOENIX’s proprietary Coolgenix case technology makes retailers like Maryland-based Klein’s supermarkets more money by selling more product and reducing costs associated with shrinkage, labor and maintenance. Klein’s used Hill-PHOENIX cases in the renovation of a newly-acquired store in Cardiff, Md.

Andrew Klein, chairman and CEO of the chain, says he chose Hill PHOENIX because of its leadership position in secondary coolant technology, energy efficient case design, and Coolgenix service case technology that keeps defrost times and product shrink to a minimum. Conyers, Ga.-based Hill PHOENIX markets these systems under the Second Nature name. Customers and store staffers have responded well to the technology, according to Klein’s officials

Merchandising flexibility is another feature Hill PHOENIX is designing into its cases. The company’s ON5UM-ON5EM can merchandise deli, dairy and produce in one case at the same time. Even though the case’s appearance is unified, it gives stores four distinct merchandising zones.

Brad Roche, vp of marketing, says Hill PHOENIX was the first to market significant airflow improvements and coil designs that are now becoming the standards of the industry. “And now we’re working closely with our customers to bring improvements in lighting to the forefront. Customer reaction to our new LED lighting systems for reach in cases tell us the improvement in product appearance and appeal is astonishing. It’s like the difference between standard and high definition television,” he says.  

Increases in machine intelligence and communications capabilities. Once, compressors were seen as just sealed pumps that moved refrigerant through cooling systems. Today, they’re like fancy automobile engines, all wired up and ready to speak to diagnosticians. Any state-of-the-art display case should include compressors with the wisdom to know when they’re going bad, and why.

Even more important, contemporary display cases should also include a full suite of communications capabilities. As containers of refrigerated and frozen food products move around the world, more are sending signals to the home office about the conditions they’re maintaining.

With wired and wireless networks now increasingly common at retail, display cases should easily be able to tell store operators how well they’re doing. Service providers such as Emerson Retail Services, Kennesaw, Ga., are cropping up to help retailers reduce operating costs and improve general operations. Emerson, for example, helps retailers by ensuring proper system operation at start up, monitoring facilities to guard against energy drift, and providing call center services to optimize the completion of work requests and routine maintenance. The company can help monitor display case conditions and alert stores if things start going wrong.

A zero tolerance goal for equipment breakdowns. “Zero downtime is what the customer wants,” says Kenny Owen, engineering manager for display case manufacturer Master-Bilt Products, New Albany, Miss. “When cases don’t work, products don’t sell,” he says. That’s one reason that Master-Bilt’s cases are constructed so that repair staff can keep the units running even when they’re being worked on.

“Maintaining the cases can be done without shutting them down,” says Owen of his company’s equipment. “When properly maintained, the case is never down unless a catastrophic failure occurs, which is rare,” he says.

Improvement in lighting technology. Computer chips are everywhere, and they’re making a big difference. One of the most important places they’re going is in the ballasts for fluorescent light bulbs. “We have switched 95% of our lighting to electronic ballasts that provide a brighter/cleaner light,” Owen says. “They also use about half the energy of the magnetic ballasts,” he says.

“Visibility of product is vital for the sale of goods. The ability to control lighting is therefore highly important,” says Howell Feig of AHT Cooling Systems, Charleston, S.C.. His company’s cabinets come with internal light as an option with special lighting, including color, available depending on what store designers want.

Emergence of Light Emitting Diodes as an increasingly viable technology.

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) have been around a long time, but only recently has technology emerged that allows LEDs to give off the white light that retailers need to show their goods off best. Because they’re smaller, LEDs are more flexible when it comes to lighting different portions of a display case. LEDs also produce less heat.

A study by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, N.Y., found that lighting was more uniform with LED systems than with traditional fluorescent lights. And while evaluators strongly preferred cases lit by LEDs, not all manufacturers are convinced the technology has really arrived. They make it available, but say waiting awhile longer may be wise.