Airflow design in refrigerated retail display cabinets and its impact on food quality

Abstract

© 2019 International Institute of Refrigeration. All rights reserved. This paper investigates how refrigerated display cabinet airflow design can enhance temperature distribution and potentially reduce food waste. Conventional refrigerated retail cabinets have a single column of cold air from the top to the bottom of the merchandising envelope. By contrast separating the retail space into individual cells, each with its own shorter air-curtain reduces infiltration and improves temperature control. The quality and safety of bagged salad over an extended display period was evaluated in a conventional and multiple short air-curtain cabinet. At the end of the test period there was a visible difference in cabinet temperature and relative humidity, which had a direct impact on the salad organoleptic quality and microbiological safety. The temperature band was 11.2ºC and 5.4ºC in the conventional and multiple air curtain cabinets respectively, resulting in a higher degree of salad wilting and shrivelling and an increase on total yeast counts on the conventional cabinet