Commercial Refrigerator, 12 Holiday Tips For Healthy And Happy Units
‘Tis the season to be jolly, so if you’re in the micromarket, pet food or food and beverage retail business, everything needs to function optimally. To ensure your customers experience a relaxing, and joyous holiday shopping season, your commercial refrigerator and display freezers need to run efficiently to serve their needs.
The latest data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds a significant segment of would-be holiday shoppers already putting retailers on the naughty list as they struggle to find what they’re looking for in stock. Nearly half (49 %) of in-person shoppers encountered shelves lacking the items they wanted. This means, that the food and beverage products you have in stock, need to be well merchandised and taken care of in commercial refrigerator units or freezers you can depend on.
Here are twelve commercial refrigerator and glass door freezer merchandiser tips that will get you through the mad dash holiday shopping season:
- Brand for the holidays
- Remote monitoring with the power of IoT
- Position the product you want to sell or best-selling ones at eye level
- Know who to call if you need service or tech support
- Keep your commercial refrigerator squeaky clean
- Online technical materials and maintenance videos
- Consider shelving, dispensers, and baskets
- Make sure your commercial refrigerator reaches desired temperature
- Keep weird noises away
- Choose touchless payment systems
- Ensure food safety
- Keep your refrigerated merchandiser full of inventory
Brand for the holidays
The red and green colours of the holiday season play a strong role on one’s psyche. For instance, certain colors carry strong connections to specific ideas and evoke different feelings in people, which businesses can use to enhance their merchandising. Capturing customer attention is the number one job of a freezer or commercial refrigerator unit, and cleverly designed graphics can lure shoppers into trying a new product or making an impulse purchase they weren’t planning on making. Moreover, smart retailers set up large seasonal displays at their entrances or at point-of-purchase (POP), to wow customers as they enter or line up to cash out and get them to stop, consider, or try a new food or beverage product. Think eggnog!
Remote monitoring with the power of IoT
Our SmartConnect leverages the power of IoT to deliver improved holiday magic around business efficiency, enhanced customer service, simplified quality assurance compliance, and better profitability. SmartConnect’s cloud-based platform gives you the information you want. Whenever and wherever you are in the world, in real time. Including instant notifications and alerts via text or email, so you can proactively act. SmartConnect accesses your commercial refrigerator data including temperature, door opening status, evaporator temperature, power failures, compressor and defrost cycles. Above all, you can check current and past merchandiser reporting for alarm conditions such as high temperature, door open, malfunction alarms and remotely silence alarms.
Position the product you want to sell or best-selling ones at eye level
The holiday season is all about sights and smells. Well-curated and strategically placed inventory means positioning best-selling products or the products you want to sell at eye level in your commercial refrigerator. This makes it easy for shoppers to find the products they want to buy or that you want to sell. That said, Capitalize on this by placing new products next to some best sellers, increasing the likelihood that they are seen. This is also a great opportunity to tie in a graphic highlighting any new product in the well-trafficked commercial refrigerator. Also LED lighting can help boost your sales. Our commercial merchandisers are illuminated with light-emitting diodes, (LED), which saturates products with an even application of directional light. These are not like the LEDs you have on your Christmas tree. Ours reduce glare and renders colors accurately, packing a high-contrast punch. Our high-efficiency glass doors ensure nothing stands between customers and a perfectly showcased view of the food and beverage products inside. The procedure to replace lights varies based on model and is explained in our owner’s manuals.
Know who to call if you need service or tech support
Our commercial refrigerator and commercial freezer products have earned us a reputation for engineering excellence, temperature stability, and reliable, high-performance components that are built to last. That said, should you run into any issues, our technical experts are here to help. First check if there is a label on the commercial refrigerator or merchandiser freezer stating what service phone number to call. Please contact Minus Forty Technologies toll free 1.800.800.5706 or call our service and warranty representative at tel. 1.800.800.5706, ext. 128, or 905.702.1441, ext. 128. You can also find operating and technical manuals, maintenance videos, and the parts order form on our website. Above all, owner and technical manuals are listed for our commercial freezers, commercial refrigerators as well as our upright merchandisers. Instructions are also provided on our website for:
- Branding decal removal and installation
- Electronic safety lock battery test and operation for our top mounted lock
- Electronic safety lock operation and verification for our side mounted lock
Keep your commercial refrigerator squeaky clean
For a reliable and clean commercial refrigerator, you need to regularly clean and inspect your unit. Develop a schedule for cleaning the inside and outside of merchandiser units, to reduce wear and tear and at the same time conduct inspections of critical components like the compressor, condenser, and the evaporator fans. Use separate cleaning materials for the outside and inside of units, to prevent any transfer of bacteria that could contaminate the food. Finally, keep cleaning equipment for commercial refrigeration units separate from those used for floors or other equipment in the store. More on cleaning here.
Consider shelving, dispensers, and baskets
Minus Forty sells a wide range of freezer and refrigerator accessories for each of our product lines, from shelves, baskets, and dividers– all designed to enhance your brand or organize your pack-out. We have coated white and black wire baskets that resist rust and are easily cleaned. Optional dividers optimize and organize space in your commercial refrigerator or commercial freezer. And these baskets are available with most of our units. Other accessories that you can add to your holiday wish list are:
- Adjustable and coated white Minus Forty cabinet shelving. They resist rust and make cleaning easy. Available with all models.
- Adjustable and coated black cabinet shelving. They resist rust and make cleaning easy. Available with 22-USGF-F1-SL, 22-USGF-F2-SL, 22-USGR-F1-SL, 22-USGR-F2-SL.
- Beverage dispensing spring pusher. Superior quality pusher system holds eight (8) 20 oz. bottles per row. Crystal clear front retainers provide 100 % product visibility. Spring feed feature front-faces product automatically.
- Beverage dispensing gravity pusher. Superior quality gravity feed system holds eight (8) 20 oz. bottles per row. Crystal clear front retainers provide 100 % product visibility.
- Sandwich/fresh food pusher. Easily adjusts for perfect pack-out with a clear view of the product. The spring glide offers a perfect presentation without having to manually face-up the shelves.
Browse our accessories page to learn more, or feel free to contact us today to place an order for your customized merchandiser solution.
Make sure your commercial refrigerator reaches desired temperature
Thermostat adjustments are explained in detail in owner’s manuals. If the glass door fridge is not reaching the desired temperature, then check the following.
- Thermostat or electronic controller set too warm
- Merchandiser loaded with excessive amount of warm product
- Excessive door openings
- Insufficient installation clearance around the cabinet or too close to heating source(s)
- Improper power supply
- Condenser coil clogged with dust and/or dirt
- Evaporator frosted up
- Fans not rotating
- Refrigerant leaks
- Compressor failure
Keep weird noises away
In this case, it’s not Santa on your roof with a sleigh of reindeers making that noise. Units that run loudly, can’t maintain safe food storage temperatures, or compressors that cycle too frequently, are all signs of pending issues that should be addressed as quickly as possible to avoid bigger commercial refrigerator problems, including health safety issues, and worse, spoiled product.
Choose touchless payment systems
Companies like Minus Forty and 365 Retail Markets have worked together to develop the PicoCooler and PicoCooler Breeze systems, both capable of allowing consumers to unlock a glass door merchandiser with their credit card and purchase product – making it a fluid and independent buying process. The food and beverage retail setting are becoming more intuitive and more diverse, which is key to a better customer experience – something that you want during the holidays and all year round.
Ensure commercial refrigerator food safety
Finally, those cookies and milk better maintain fresh food standards, or else, you’ll have one sick Claus. Food safety and food hygiene are always top-of-mind in your business. You need commercial refrigerators that maintain food integrity. Minus Forty glass door refrigerators can chill food at a rapid rate and maintain stable temperatures. So can our commercial freezers. This way, the integrity of your products, their taste and texture are maintained at the highest levels. Our state-of-the-art NAMA certified SmartLock health timer keeps an eye, always, on your food by protecting items from spoilage. The Minus Forty SmartLock health timer never sleeps. It constantly monitors the interior storage temperature and safeguards your delicious food products by locking the commercial refrigerator when a pre-set safety limit is reached. In short, consider it the hard-working holiday elf, always keeping an eye and protecting the food that you sell.
Keep your refrigerated merchandiser full of inventory
You want to sell, sell, sell more product! This means keeping your commercial refrigerator full, but don’t overstock. Overloading blocks interior airflow, which can lead to spoiled food and equipment damage. The best thing to do is to distribute the product evenly inside the merchandiser unit. Note to self, commercial refrigeration cabinets are better able to maintain a stable temperature if they’re stocked with products (but not overstocked) versus depleted, since the thermal mass of the refrigerated or frozen products helps to maintain the interior temperature.
A toast! Here’s hoping your commercial refrigerator units and commercial freezers serve you well this time of year.