Supermarkets – Dehumidification & Moisture Removal
Modern supermarkets’ environment is complex and unique.
The sheer size, scale and multitude of products, departments, people and varying temperatures required across such a facility can create a real challenge.
Some of the issues that the industry experiences can be related to humidity, particularly in frozen food storage, either on the shop floor or in bulk storage facilities on-site and remote cold store facilities. These issues include:
- Breakdown of the refrigeration and freezer systems
- Condensation and Ice forming inside freezer doors and display cases
- Customer frustration develops as they cannot see the products through steamy display cases and glass doors.
- Frost shock and resultant loss of sales and product wastage
- Staff and customer discomfort from either being too hot or too cold.
Controlling the indoor air within a supermarket is crucial if it is to be operational.
Take, for example, the current trend for upright freezer display cabinets in most Supermarkets. These present the product to the customer in a very easy to view manner but suffer from moisture ingress due to the constant opening of doors for the goods to be removed. Whenever the door is opened, cold air is lost and replaced with warmer moist air from the store itself. This air is usually un-conditioned, and as it hits the produce at around -180C, the result is frost shock (seen as hoar frost) and an increased load on the refrigeration to cope with the sudden temperature change.
Simply incorporating a desiccant dehum unit in the specific air handling system for the freezer cabinets can lower the dewpoint sufficiently to prevent (or at least dramatically reduce) the incidence of frosting on product and help reduce the additional heat loads on the refrigeration plant.
Our team of specialist engineers have the knowledge, experience and skills to tackle these type of complex humidity control requirements. A dehum desiccant dehumidification system will drastically improve a supermarket’s operations and maintain the ideal humidity across the entire building.
We operate cold store dehumidification systems for Sainsbury’s, Ocado, ASDA, Tesco, Bookers, Heron Foods, Iceland, Bidvest, JJ Foods and many other smaller independent organisations, helping to create energy-efficient humidity control and lower supermarket energy consumption.
