INSULATION Flexibly cool
Many businesses are hesitant about planning too far ahead until there is a clearer indication of how the fallout from Covid-19 is going to impact on their profits, but on the otherhand, they need to maximise efficiencies and save money or energy where possible – as well as capitalising on any new opportunities that arise. Jill Seymour, director of Seymour Manufacturing International explains the benefits of using flexible thermally efficient curtains through the cold chain.
T
he food retail chain is one sector which has benefited greatly over the past few months, particularly those stores which have not had to rely too heavily on third-party suppliers. However, this boom in demand has brought with it something of a logistical headache too. In those first few weeks of lockdown, when many families were panic buying or stockpiling, even the biggest retailers found they did not have sufficient frozen or chilled storage space. Thankfully, flexibility is the temperature- controlled insulation sector’s middle name. Since the pandemic took hold, we’ve seen a significant rise in demand for products delivering thermal insulation barriers and protection, plus portable cold rooms and temperature controlled zones for large areas. Why? Because they make it possible for any
combination of ambient, chilled products to be stored in any building or vehicle, and to be regularly reshaped or reconfigured.
From airports to ships, beer cellars to portable
catering units, these systems have gone into overdrive recently to help keep all manner of products at their optimum temperature. We have also been working closely with the
funeral sector this year to ensure a sufficient supply of mortuary units – using the exact same technology – were on standby at the height of the pandemic. And with more families choosing to receive their weekly supermarket shop by home delivery, the interest in thermally insulated roll cage covers, box liners and thermal bags has also increased. When we invented and supplied one of the first flexible cold rooms to Waitrose many years ago, one of the partners suggested the name Temperature Controlled Zone (TCZ), and it has stuck with us ever since.
The real benefit at a time like this is that it is easy to use, quick to fold away, simple to fit and amazingly effective as a flexible cold room. As we
36 August 2020
like to say – it allows you to ‘hang up a cold room’. Through vigorous validation and testing over the
years, our unique thermal insulation material Tempro has been independently proven to cut energy loss by at least 25% in chillers and as much as 33% in freezers.
We have one customer in the south of England who pulls out a Tempro TCZ to divide part of his bakery into a chilled area to insert cream and chocolate after the product is baked. Another took their TCZ with them when they moved premises and was able to buy more curtains with added track to extend into their new site. Where companies are ripping up long-held
business plans, we believe that this kind of flexibility is going to become even more crucial in the coming months.
The global cold chain monitoring market was valued at around £4 billion last year, and is predicted to top £7 billion by 2025. The key factors driving this growth include a
spiralling demand to protect the environment with energy saving products like ours that are needed for temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals, movement of chilled and frozen goods, mortuary units, chilled and frozen logistics.
The world is a small place these days, and many products are travelling huge distances to reach their end-users, covering vastly differing climatic conditions.
The ability to maintain cargo at its specified temperature is mission critical, which is why we have developed a range of products designed to protect goods in ambient to chilled and chilled to frozen combinations. Providing a suitable temperature-controlled
environment, often at short notice, is just part of the battle these days. The question our sales team is being asked more often than any other right now though is: “What is
the Covid-19 risk?” That’s no surprise, as the virus has significantly impacted food safety practices across the entire industry. It was interesting to read recently about tightened border checks in countries such as Belgium, France and Switzerland, where officials are now carrying out far more stringent tests on food in transit. Consumers want guarantees that the food on their plate has been carried in optimum conditions from field to fork – and for the majority of frozen or ambient produce, temperature control is the number one factor. No-one can ever give a 100% anti-bacterial
guarantee, of course, but we now enrich our strip curtains, door and thermal windows with Bio-Gard, a trademarked compound which has been chemically proven to kill 99% of all known bacteria. Over the course of 10 years, it has been tested
under many conditions to ensure that it complies to world standards such as JIS Z 2801. 2000, ISO 22196:2011, and EU Directive 20002/72EC. A key message coming from our customers is a desire to reduce their carbon footprint. Companies are setting themselves stringent targets, and challenging deadlines. One of our newest customers, an ice cream manufacturer, described himself as ‘a sceptical engineer by nature’ and monitored energy consumption on the freezer unit where Cold Stop curtains had been fitted. He now appreciates that installing thermally
efficient curtains in place of simple plastic strips can have a rapid return on investment, reducing energy use and costs. He has now progressed onto trialling curtains on a delivery van. These are challenging and rapidly changing times, but we are investing for the future and recruiting new staff so that we can increase our bespoke manufacturing capabilities. We see this as being key to the future of our industry.
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