Temperature control saves thousands

Frozen food processors could save thousands of pounds in annual energy bills through improved temperature monitoring and control and freezer metering.

That was a core message emerging from the completion of a project involving the British Frozen Food Federation (BFFF), environmental consultancy Enviros and the Carbon Trust. The project studied the impact of storage temperatures on cold chain efficiency using products from eight host companies' sites, including Bernard Matthews' Saxmundham plant and R&R Ice Cream's North Allerton facility.

Enviros measured storage and product temperatures from blast freezing to departure from distribution depots. Delegates at a BFFF seminar in Birmingham heard that many manufacturers did not sub-meter cold stores. Consequently they had no idea how much electricity they were using, despite energy costs for most sites exceeding £250,000 per year.

Speaking at the seminar, Enviros director Ray Gluckman said: "Up to a 20% energy saving could be achieved across the industry in this area." Enviros proposed eight key ways for the frozen food supply chain to save energy.

It claimed its findings showed substantial savings could be made through more efficient temperature monitoring. Many firms were running cold stores at needlessly low temperatures, it said. The industry standard is -18°C, but the BFFF is looking to change European law to allow -15°C. "What is the right safe storage level?" said Gluckman.

"Most cold stores operate at -21°C. Is this too cold? Is -18°C itself too conservative? Keeping closer to -18°C is what the industry should be pushing on with." Shifting to higher cold store evaporation temperatures could cut energy output by 42.7%, he said.