15 Businesses That Require Refrigeration

Starting a business means you need a business plan. Within all the other details that you’ll need to include in the plan are the costs of building and heating or cooling your space. Not all companies need a refrigeration chamber or commercial fridges, but if you do, this cost must be factored into the budget.

Here we’ll look at 15 businesses that require refrigeration.

1. Supermarkets and Green Grocers

Supermarkets and other shops that sell fresh food are likely to be the first thing you think of when you think of commercial refrigeration. They require massive amounts of cooling power to keep produce, meat, and dairy products fresh and in good condition.

The refrigerators in the front of the store need to be easily accessible or even open for customer use, but there are also storage refrigerators or cold rooms in the back to provide extra space for the products that have not been set out yet.

2. Butchers

With the need to keep meat cool once butchered, it’s not surprising that butchers and abattoirs are high on the list of businesses that require commercial refrigerators to prevent their products from going off. Certain meats are more susceptible to bacterial growth than others, but it’s important to keep all meat at the proper temperature once it has been hung and cured.

3. Dairy Farms

As soon as milk is extracted from the cow, it must be chilled rapidly. Commercial dairy farms are set up to do this all automatically, but even small farms will need a large fridge or cold room where they can store their milk and cream until it’s time to package and sell it. The fridges cannot be too cold, but they must maintain the dairy products at the correct temperature to preserve it as long as possible.

4. Pharmacies

Most medicine does not last if kept in hotter temperatures, but a decently cool room is usually sufficient to maintain freshness. However, other medications, such as insulin and vaccines, will need to be kept at very specific temperatures and tend to be rather sensitive to changes in their environment.

A pharmacy will often have multiple fridges to ensure they can keep each medication at the correct temperature for its particular needs. There must be a system to ensure each fridge is at the right temperature and to ensure the medications are placed in the right section.

5. Hotels

At first glance, a hotel may not seem like it requires a commercial refrigerator, but even those without restaurants or bars will need one. If the hotel does provide drinks or food, they will definitely need a cold place to keep them and may even invest in a cold room.

Regular hotels without the addition of food service will find that a fridge is helpful for keeping employee lunches cool, refrigerating items that guests request to keep cool, and providing ice for guests.

6. Bottle Shops

What’s a beer or white wine if it’s not chilled? While most bottle shops offer room temperature alcohol, there are usually several commercial refrigerators for the beverages that will be consumed shortly after purchasing. These hold everything from water and juice to beer and wine, which allows consumers to purchase and use them without the need to cool.

Many bottle shops also sell ice for drinks, so you’ll find freezers alongside the chilling chambers.

7. Florists

Flowers are quite delicate and rarely last long at room temperature. Florists must ensure that the flowers are kept as fresh and perky as possible, by keeping them refrigerated. However, if the temperature drops too low, it will rapidly kill the flowers and ruin the entire inventory. To avoid this, the refrigerators must be very carefully monitored. They also need to be high enough quality that the temperature will always be even.

8. Caterers and Restaurants

Restaurants are another rather obvious business that requires refrigeration on a large scale. The bigger the restaurant, the more refrigeration is required.

Aside from multiple refrigerators or a cold room, restaurants will also require a large freezer. Caterers may operate on a smaller scale but will also require both refrigeration and freezers.

9. Warehouses

Many warehouses manage and store items that require temperature control. They may have a full warehouse cold room, separate refrigerators, or multiple cold rooms. This allows the warehouse to handle things like medications, food (both chilled and frozen), plants, and other products that require cooling.

Again, if the products are particularly sensitive to changes in temperature, the refrigerated chambers must be very carefully monitored to ensure the temperature doesn’t change more than a degree or two. Electronics, medications, plants, and other items cannot be too cold or too hot, so there needs to be a precise temperature system set up to avoid any variations in the temperature.

10. Fisheries

Fisheries raise fish for food production and they often do the processing, as well. This means the fish need to be kept cool before they are packaged and sent on to their final destinations. The amount of refrigeration required is rather high and it is necessary to have it set up for the seafood. In most cases, there will be both cooling rooms as well as freezers, depending on how the fish and seafood will be processed.

11. Hospitals

There are a number of reasons hospitals need refrigerators and they’ll require them for the kitchen, lab, pharmacy, and staff space. Each of these spaces requires their own refrigeration and, in some cases, it is even more important to have stable temperatures.

The kitchen in a hospital needs freezers and fridges to manage the food and keep it fresh, but the labs will also need to keep samples in good condition. Samples and tests will need to be preserved while the results are calculated. The pharmacy will also need to keep medication secure and at a safe temperature.

12. Laboratories

Research centres and laboratories need multiple refrigerators for assorted reasons. First, they need to have a space to store samples at a specific temperature for security and to prevent bacterial growth. Other refrigerators will require different temperatures for experiments and for testing. There will be areas for storing substances, medications, and other ingredients, as well, so every lab should have a variety of cooling chambers for their different uses, each set to the ideal temperature.

13. Data Centres

Data centres involve a large number of computers all in the same space, which rapidly heats up a room. To prevent overheating, there is a definite need for cooling in these spaces. The entire server room is essentially a refrigerator. You’ll need to keep it nice and cool in the space so the computers work as well as they can. This type of business is heavily dependent on the ongoing maintenance of the servers, so the cooling system must be top level.

14. Electronics Factories

Cold rooms are standard in electronics factories to prevent dust and dirt from contaminating the products. The cooler rooms also ensure that the parts are kept in good condition and don’t succumb to heat. Since electronic parts can be quite delicate and sensitive to heat, it’s best for everything to be assembled under refrigeration. This is also important since the more electronic devices you have in a space, the higher the heat level will rise. A refrigerated space will help prevent the many devices from raising the temperature too much.

15. Homeless Shelters and Soup Kitchens

Refrigeration is a huge part of the world today and is involved in nearly every industry. It’s particularly useful when it comes to food, however and while homeless shelters aren’t your standard business, they do require refrigeration.

The kitchen will need a place to store the food for the charity, while the shelter may use their refrigerator for keeping things cool for residents. This may include milk for babies, drinks, or even medications that require specific temperatures.

Refrigeration is an essential part of many manufacturing and retail businesses. Whether it’s a simple refrigerator, an open cooling box, or a full cold room, there are always ways to help prevent overheating and the destruction of products.

Cold has long been a way to keep our produce fresh and prevent food from rotting. With the invention of refrigeration, you can have refrigeration in just about any environment. There are so many ways to use this technology and many industries are doing just that.

Need refrigeration solutions for your business? Contact Ian Hobbs for more information today.