Refrigeration in the food retail sector looking beyond 2019

Hubbard's freezer aisle cabinets

Gary Fuller - Key Accounts Manager - Hubbard Products, looks back at the key influences on supermarket refrigeration in the past decade and what the future requirement will be.

Predicting the future is not only difficult it's near on impossible. If we look back over the past 10 years at all aspects of life, we have seen some very impressive additions some for the better and some not so, and technology has taken over the world. Uber, Instagram and Amazon are a part of everyday life for many, yet a decade ago they were unknown, but in that same period, what sort of changes have there been within the food retail environment?

Looking back over the last 10 years; the amount of change within the food retail segment has been significant. In 2009, the big four supermarkets were experiencing a period of accelerated expansion - the BBC reported that planning authorities gave them permission for at least 480 stores in England in the two years to 1 November 2010. This rapid growth was not all about more stores but bringing a new type of store experience. Generally, this meant out of town complexes, much larger than previous stores providing consumers with a broadening range of products, and a brand-new focus on multi-channel retailing. This included clothing, electronics, opticians, cafes, dry-cleaning, click and collect and home delivery formats amongst others.

Supermarkets were no longer just a place to purchase food and the daily essentials; they had become multi-faceted retail environments, true one-stop-shops

However, by 2019, this approach is undergoing a fundamental change. The big four retailers market share has dropped, with the introduction of the discounters, along with a change in shopping habits to meet consumers' new way of purchasing food, little and often.

A surge of convenient 'express' stores, and quick, healthy services such as Simply Cook, Gousto, Abel & Cole are becoming more popular with consumers valuing quality and convenience over price.

This change in consumer behaviour prompted the main supermarkets to look at the dynamics of their estate to meet the new demand, and in 2013, the UK's largest retailer announced that it had more convenience stores than supermarkets, quickly mirrored by others in 2014.

Alongside these changes in the retailer's estate, there has also been a significant transformation in the refrigeration solutions that have been installed across the major supermarkets not just in the UK, but globally.

In 2008, there were roughly 100 supermarkets in Europe using CO2 refrigeration within their retail footprint, today this has risen to more than 20,000. What are the drivers towards this increase in use?

Policy is one of the major factors for the specification of CO2 being more common. Policies vary across countries and continents, but for the EU, the F-Gas regulation and the Phase-down of HFCs by 79% by 2030, and the use of low GWP systems is one of the main factors that customers are looking at low GWP and CO2 solutions for their refrigeration systems.

Many food retailers have signed up to the Consumer Goods Forum, a global organisation that provides a platform for networking and best-practice sharing across the consumer goods industry. It also commits its members to install new equipment that utilises only natural refrigerants or alternative ultra-low GWP refrigerants of less than 150, wherever viable.

So, with these changes in policy and the direction set by the end user groups, CO2 is here for the future, but is it right for every food retailer?

I believe the short answer is not necessarily. We are not saying that CO2 is not an option, but food retailers need to look at their whole system and the various refrigerants available and pick the right solution, based on their business needs and requirements, whilst also meeting the policy regulations.

As food retailers make the move towards low GWP and/or natural refrigerants, they need to calculate the efficiency and consider the total Total Equivalent Warming Impact - TEWI - calculation of their refrigeration system, whilst also determining whether a pack, condensing units or plug-ins is right for them and their store environment.

The refrigeration market is evolving, and at a time when new policies and legislation are announced, innovation again comes to the forefront, at Hubbard Products we are leading the way by working with many of the UK's major food retailers and developing CO2, low GWP, and other natural refrigerant systems that deliver efficiency, compliancy, performance and reliability to suit the sectors new business models.

Gary Fuller

For further information, comment or to discuss, email gary.fuller@hubbardproducts.com