Environmentally Friendly Cooling Solutions in Belgium’s Carrefour Supermarket To Guarantee Product Freshness

Cooling with the Environment in Mind

Carrefour Group has set itself a goal of achieving a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2019. The main contributors to the Group’s total direct greenhouse gas emissions are gas, electricity, and refrigerants.

Carrefour emphasizes lowering energy consumption and its greenhouse gas emissions by phase-outing hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) gas refrigerants. To achieve this goal, for its new supermarket in Belgium, Carrefour has chosen a natural alternative for HFC cooling solutions – environmentally friendly CO₂ (R744) refrigerant.

The CO₂ refrigerant is a natural, non-flammable remote cooling solution with excellent refrigeration properties and a global warming potential (GWP) of just 1. It is not only a great alternative to HFC refrigerants but also a great choice for saving more energy, especially in a country like Belgium, where the climate is cool and wet since a remote CO₂ cooling system can improve the supermarkets‘ energy consumption by up to 10% under mild or cold climate conditions.

Cooling with the Product Freshness in Mind

In 2018 Carrefour launched the Act for Food global transformation program, highlighting the Group’s commitment to better food that is accessible to everyone. With this program, the Carrefour Group urges its agricultural partners and all food chain stakeholders to achieve higher standards in terms of quality, traceability, and environmental protection.

Caring about the quality of the products they offer, the Carrefour supermarket was looking for cooling equipment that would help to keep the products fresh for longer while maintaining their quality. FREOR manufactured commercial refrigeration equipment, which emphasizes the excellent presentation and preservation of merchandise, was an excellent solution for the supermarket, checking all of its requirements boxes.

To retain the freshness and quality of the fresh products, FREOR installed multidecks JUPITER and semi verticals PLUTON SPACE featuring balanced cold air circulation between the shelves and excellent cooling performance. The supermarket chose the majority of JUPITER multidecks with glass doors because of their better energy efficiency in light of the group’s goal of lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Freezers ERIDA, HELLA, and LEDA, featuring a electric defrost heater inside that helps avoid buildups of frost and ice, ensures that the food stored inside is kept frozen at the ideal temperature, were implemented in the store for the preservation of frozen merchandise.

Wanting more flexibility with the promotional display counters, Carrefour supermarket chose plug-in IDA S and IDA S H1 self-service counters with wheels. The counters ensure stable temperature performance and can be easily moved and placed in any shopping area to stimulate impulse purchases.

The project was implemented with FREOR sales and maintenance partner in Belgium, Cooltech.