Commercial Markets We serve
Food Processing
We design, build, and maintain essential plant components to achieve the storage temperatures required to increase store life significantly.
Refrigerated Transport
We provide service and maintenance contracts to customers who operate localized small to medium refrigerated fleets in the Southern Cape.
Hospitality
We can offer expert advice, design solutions, install, and provide ongoing maintenance for a wide array of needs within the Hospitality Industry.
Agriculture
For more than 20 years, we have been dedicated to designing and delivering solutions specifically tailored to meet the needs of the Agricultural Sector.
Food Retailing
We have vast experience in the local industry, whilst blending our understanding of regional practices with the latest local and international design trends.
Food processing
Fu:d/preu.ses.ing…
is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms and making them suitable for consumption, cooking, or storage.
“It is well known that some bacteria are responsible for degradation of food, and enzymatic processing causes ripening of fruits and vegetables. The growth of bacteria and the rate of enzymatic processes are reduced at low temperature. This helps in reducing the spoilage and improving the shelf life of the food. The table below shows useful storage life of some plant and animal tissues at various temperatures.” – Craig de Souza
Average Useful Storage Life Days
We have experienced in designing, building and maintaining essential plant components to achieve the storage temperatures required to increase store life significantly. Our expertise ranges from small plants right up to large capacity refrigeration plants.
| Food Product | 0 C | 22 C | 38 C |
| Meat | 6-10 | 1 | <1 |
| Fish | 2-7 | 1 | <1 |
| Poultry | 5-18 | 1 | <1 |
| Dry Meat & Fish | >1000 | >350&<1000 | >100&<350 |
| Fruits | 2-180 | 1-20 | 1-7 |
| Dry Fruits | >1000 | >350&<1000 | >100&<350 |
| Leafy Vegetables | 3-20 | 1-7 | 1-3 |
| Root Crops | 90-300 | 7-50 | 2-20 |
Road transport refrigeration
Rowd:tran+spawt:ruh.fri.juh.rei.shn…
the transportation of frozen or chilled food and beverages.
Road transport refrigeration equipment is required to operate reliably in much harsher environments than stationary refrigeration equipment. Due to the wide range of operating conditions and constraints imposed by available space and weight, transport refrigeration equipment have lower efficiencies than stationary systems. This, coupled to rapidly increasing use of refrigerated transport arising from the much wider range of transported goods, home delivery and greater quality expectations, is placing considerable pressures on the food industry to reduce the energy consumption of refrigerated transport.
We are able to provide services and maintenance contracts to our customers who operate localized small to medium refrigerated fleets in the Southern Cape. We can assist with the following:
- Thorough pre-cooling of the product and the trailer to reduce the temperature differential between the product and the surrounding air.
- Keeping the evaporator coil only a few degrees colder than the desired transit temperature by perfect expansion valve and thermostat calibration, which should only be carried out by a competent refrigeration technician.
- Controlling the air temperature at the air delivery side of the evaporator only, for chilled products.
- Thermostat accuracy must be so that the temperature graph indicates as straight a line as possible, in other words the temperature variance between the cooling and heating cycle switching should ideally be no more than 1,5°C or more than minus 1,0°C from setpoint.
- Use a refrigeration system, with the largest cooling coil (evaporator) available.
- Waxing the product or using semi-permeable wraps to reduce evaporation, but depending on the package, could restrict the amount of airflow through the package and also restricting the amount of airflow through the packaging.
Pre-cooling
To maintain a fresh appearance, prevent decay and extend the shelf life of most fresh fruits and vegetables, it is necessary to start lowering the temperature and remove the field heat from the product as soon as possible after harvest. Any cooling completed before the product is at the shipping temperature, is referred to as pre-cooling.
Pre-cooling may include one or a combination of the following methods:
- Room cooling by utilizing the built in air circulation system in the cold store. This is a very slow process and optimum product temperature may never be achieved.
- Forced air cooling by forcing the cold air through the load making use of fans. Forced air cooling is very efficient, produces fast and even cooling throughout the stack and is cost effective.
- Pressure cooling is in principle the same as forced air cooling, but is done in specially built cooling tunnels. This enables high throughput, very fast and even cooling, but cost effective for large volumes only.
- Hydro cooling by placing the product into direct contact with chilled water. A very fast and effective method, but requires skilled maintenance and operation.
Hospitality
Ho-spuh-ta-luh-tee…
the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.
“The hospitality industry is a large, active and very competitive evolving industry. The demand for services is high, and customers expect the best service at any restaurant or hotel that they visit in order to remain competitive as well as supply to the demand of customers, restaurants and hotels need to have efficient processes in place as well the correct catering/refrigeration equipment.” – Cater Ware
We can advise, design, install and maintain the Hospitality Industry’s needs, such as:
- High traffic kitchen units.
- Quick service restaurants.
- Traditional sit-down restaurants
- Walk in cold and freezer rooms
- Reach in refrigerators and freezers
- Food prep refrigerators and freezers
- Merchandise display refrigerators
- Shock freezers and blast chillers
- Swimming pool heating/chilling
- Cooling towers
- Air Conditioning
Agriculture
A-gruh-kuhl-chuh…
the science or practice of farming.
The Agricultural Sector is being driven to focus on more high-valve yielding products and processes. As a result the sector is also increasingly incorporating energy efficient solutions into their designs. Hassle-free solutions allow farmers to focus their efforts on refining operations, production, storage and delivery to markets.
We have experience in designing and providing solutions for the agricultural sector for over 20 years. We can assist with the:
- Pre-cooling of produce with cold water before putting it into refrigerated areas.
- Improving insulation of the refrigerated cold storage area.
- Reducing infiltration of warm air through the doors, cracks, and other openings.
- Regular maintenance and servicing of refrigeration equipment.
- Utilizing energy -efficient compressors, heat-exchangers, and refrigerants.
- Taking steps to prevent and detect refrigerant leakage.
- Milk tank calibration, calibration certification & internal tank leak detection & repairs.
- Milk tank same day exchange & installation.
- Manufacturers of Ice Banks and small water chillers.
Food Retailing
Fuid:ree.tei.luhng…
the process of selling consumer services to customers through multiple channels of distribution.
“Supermarkets are one of the highest commercial energy consumers in South Africa. For retailers, their energy consumption expense is second only to labor when looking at operational expenses and typically accounts for over 3% of turnover in an increasingly competitive business where profit margins average below 2%.” – Roy Naidoo, Danfoss SA
Outeniqua Refrigeration has vast experience in the local industry whilst incorporating local and International Design Trends.
Local Trends
- Centralized multiplex plants with electronic controls and monitoring.
- Energy efficiency is the major focus.
- The introduction of doors on upright displays & sliding tops on island freezers.
- The phasing out of R22 as refrigerant –the move is towards CO2 as refrigerant [with up to 20% saving on energy bills].
- Using waste heat from the refrigeration system is becoming standard practice.
- The move towards data monitoring of how effective / efficient a plant is performing.
- The hot foods section in supermarkets is being looked at in a hard way.
- Lightning is getting more intelligent.
Global Trends
- Moving to CO2 as a supermarket refrigerant is a global trend.
- Placing doors on refrigeration cabinets is a lot more progressed globally. The focus is on fine tuning the refrigeration system –savings are coming from controlling the set point better.
- The move is towards digitization & electronic controllers for ”one view store management @predictive maintenance”.
