Should all supermarket fridges have doors?

I give up on my icon trouble. Perhaps it’s the weather, who knows?

The author should have written ‘…save millions of kilowatt-hours of electricity’, though the meaning is obvious since the correct unit is given earlier.

The Coop has been fitting sliding doors throughout their shops, and these are easily wedged open by staff when rotating stock.

The open, chest-type freezers are efficient without tops, I suspect, although tops could make a difference; how much would need to be measured. I’ve long thought the least efficient and most wasteful are the chiller cabinets.

Sorry malcolm, just read your comment!

M&S often do this, when it is hot, to keep the cool air in. You just lift the cover to get to the food you want.

First time I saw it – was a bit of a surprise! The shop was much quieter than usual. I am guessing many people went in, saw the blinds and left again. The poor staff were rushing about checking the temps of the fridges.

Happily I got my shopping in ok. 😉

The number of supporters is now approaching 27,000. Well done Jonathan for doing something positive.

I’d like to see the evidence that supports this. “Retailers in the United Kingdom unnecessarily waste huge amounts of energy on open fridges and freezers.“. Presumably Jonathan has it?

Well done Jonathan! Great to gather so much support in such little time 🙂

Malcolm – Jonathan has provided a useful link in his petition: https://www.coolproducts.eu/news/why-dont-supermarket-fridges-have-doors

The figures given in the 4 JRC report suggest that a saving of £2.3bn a year in the UK could be achieved by such energy efficiency. There are 87 000+ grocery stores in the UK, an average of £26 000 a year each. Does that seem possible? Is this all down to simply lack of doors? I would think that would be enough of a stimulus to stores to address the problem. I wonder what the projected energy saving in the UK would actually be (the data was EU wide) and what work our cost-conscious supermarkets will have done to save money. We could ask them?

I was under the impression that in modern, large volume, supermarkets and superstores sophisticated heating and ventilation plants were a comprehensive solution to maintaining a balanced temperature in different areas, so that the heat from refrigeration and air conditioning or the escape of cold air from open cabinets were part of the mix both for economy and for energy conservation. I should be interested to know if this is correct.

Vertical chiller cabinets generally have blinds that are pulled down when the store closes but their thermal insulation properties are not so good as doors. Frozen food is generally already either in deep cabinets or behind spring-loaded doors.

Which is why Id like the supermarkets to be asked rather than just jumping to conclusions. All too easy to demonise someone in the absence of their input.

It is referred to as HVAC – heating, ventilation and air conditioning, so a search for supermarket HVAC will turn up plenty of reading material.

There are ways of reducing the energy consumption of open refrigeration cabinets but doors do seem the best option. With hinged opening doors there is a small risk of injury. Sliding doors are probably safer but opening one will mean that the one next door cannot be opened and there is more risk of the door being left open by shoppers.

HVAC will take account of all loads, throughout the year, including that from refrigeration devices but I doubt it will directly address the devices themselves. The cost of energy in maintaining the correct store environment will be substantial and the efficiency of all contributors will be of direct concern to the stores’ managers. Personally, I doubt it is a “wasteful” practice in view of the energy involved but as stores will have professional building services engineers looking after their pennies I’d like to see what they have to say.

It makes sense for deep freezer cabinets to have lids that can be kept closed and opened by the customer when required [Farm Foods used to use this method and might still do so but we don’t have one near us]. Even if they are generally left open during shopping hours they can be closed when the store closes.

Sliding doors seem to create problems due to misuse or rough handling. There is a local Tesco near us and I sometimes have to carry out adjustments to get the sliding door back to the closed position. The British have lost the art of being gentle with mechanical things and use too much force. The ice cream compartment seems to suffer the most.

Jonathan Golding,
How about another go at this? As I read the response, the UK government has listed some of the most efficient coolers for supermarkets, and encouraged retailers to buy them. Something like energy performance stickers on washing machines, dishwashers, etc. This is nonsense, as there is no requirement to buy the efficient ones, and no minimum requirement. The EU is doing this: “The European Commission recently introduced mandatory Ecodesign minimum energy performance standards…” which is hardly inspiring, but at least a minimum requirement. Now that we’re out of the EU, is the UK government going to do anything at all? Let’s at least try to make them adopt the EU minimum. And maybe there is something else which can be done. The reason retailers don’t like doors, curtains, etc. as I believe some studies show that it reduces sales. Well, be that as it may, the planet should have priority. Maybe there are other knowledgeable experts in this area who would back a campaign.

If we could make Freedom of Information requests we might get this information from supermarket chains, but until then we need to rely on what snippets of information are available. Here is an old article about action by the Co-op: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/dec/25/co-op-supermarkets-extend-fridge-door-scheme

Which? could ask them. I asked them a year ago about their plastic packaging policy and received informative replies. I published them in the relevant Convo. I see no need to go down the FOI route unless the better approach fails.

Well spotted @dugalheath, we’ve amended the photo, and I’ve amended my notes to no longer request a “really cool” image from our picture desk.

I’ve made tea now – will it improve the jokes? Stay tuned!

This suggests that every supermarket wastes 68kW simply by not having doors on chilled cabinets. I would just like to see the evidence that supports this. Would an average supermarket knowingly waste around £100 000 a year in this way?

According to some research, supermarkets account for around 3% of UK electricity, and 45% is used for refrigeration. Thus if 1% of UK electricity is wasted in the way described, this implies 66% of the total refrigeration energy is being lost by having no doors. I wonder?

Supermarkets I visit generally have doors or sliding covers. Maybe the data is derived from those that do not and extrapolated, assuming the whole supermarket estate is the same?

Whatever the figure, it’s about time that the most efficient solution is used in all supermarkets. I sincerely hope we don’t have to wait another couple of years.

I think what I was suggesting was evidence of just how many supermarkets lack this energy saving measure. I would have thought the cost to them would be the incentive to do this, particularly in such a competitive industry.

They could question the high lighting levels they use; apparently lighting accounts for around 20% of their energy use. Commercial buildings generally could look at this; sensible lighting levels are needed to perform tasks comfortably but local lighting for that, with general lower-level amenity lighting, is a good solution. The lights left on out of hours, whether for security or cleaners, could also be targeted. Once again, building managers will be aware of this as the financial savings will be readily apparent and, if attractive, should encourage change.

I used to drive past a Lidl store quite frequently and noticed that the lighting was fully on hours after the 20:00 closing time, possibly all night. I checked a couple of times to make sure that no-one was stacking shelves or cleaning but the place was deserted. Head office welcomed my call and said they would take action, but the practice continued.

Our university library automatic lighting in the book stacks since the 70s and this was later rolled out across campus to reduce waste when rooms were empty.

Indeed. I wonder about the additional cost of having largely moved from conventional freezers to frost-free ones that do not need to be defrosted. These use a timer to turn off the refrigeration, say once a day, and a heater to defrost the evaporator.

Whilst every little helps we need to quantify the likely savings; then the most inefficient uses that are easiest to address can be dealt with.

I wonder why we don’t consider controlling the kind of cars we allow, based on fuel consumption. Should we allow gas-guzzlers to use a disproportionate amount of our fossil fuels? Should we allow large, powerful electric cars that use more electricity than is really necessary? Should we allow holiday air travel? Yes, we should, (unfortunately) I think as we need to keep consumers of all kinds onside. The energy change must be a gradual process largely so that consent allows an orderly transition to be achieved, particularly when we will have our incomes taxed more to pay for the changes.

Lot’s of little technical issues to think about then. 🙂 At least there are now plenty of incentives to do so.

Some freezers route hot refrigerant from the compressor adjacent to the door seal to prevent a build-up of ice. I do not know how common this is.