From our article in Refrigerated Transporter, the industry information source for transportation and distribution of refrigerated products.
Food warehouse saves big with strip curtains
The Southern California facility of Chef’s Warehouse, located in the City of Industry, made some modifications that resulted in significant operational efficiencies. It placed strip doors on both ends of the facility’s almost 1,500-square-foot freezer compartment, and on the doors to its 38,000 square feet of temperature-controlled storage space… Within a few days of installation of the ArmorBond strip doors, the average temperature in the meat freezer dropped from 29.4° to 26.7°F, with no change in the set temperature on the thermostat. A similar temperature drop occurred in the temperature-controlled storage area.
ArmorBond doors are designed and manufactured by Subzero Engineering. “That’s a huge savings in energy for Chef’s Warehouse,” said Vince Iulianello, executive general manager of the company’s City of Industry facility.
Iulianello points to additional savings on the front end. He originally contemplated installing automatic freezer doors on both ends of the freezer room at a cost of $15,000. The entire package of ArmorBond strip doors, two strip doors on either end, came in for a price tag of $4,000.
Several weeks after installation, an auditor from Southern California Edison, the local electrical utility, came through the warehouse and spotted the strip doors. After a few calculations, the auditor told Iulianello that the installation qualified for a rebate equal to more than 25% of the cost of the strip doors.
“That was an added bonus,” said Iulianello.
Another benefit is the saved traffic time through the strip doors.
“The Subzero Engineering Simplex ArmorBond Strip Doors are designed to allow easy two-way access from not only pedestrians, but from heavy pallet jack and forklift traffic,” said Iulianello.