Carel: Thirty Years Of Refrigeration

It was back in 1990 that CAREL released its first product for the refrigeration sector, after 17 years’ of business operating exclusively in the air conditioning market. The first controller was called S90, and was the first range of microprocessor controllers to successfully enter the market in terms of completeness and innovation. The controller came with many unique technical featured: the ability to combine the thermostat and defrost functions on the same device, simple installation, and the large backlit LCD display with resolution to a tenth of a degree, just to name a few. 
  
“At the end of the eighties, CAREL had achieved good results in the production and sale of air conditioning controllers, and we started making our first plans for international expansion”, recalled the company’s founder Luigi Rossi Luciani. “Our main competitors were already operating in the refrigeration market, so we decided to exploit the expertise available in the company to expand into this sector. Despite tip-toeing into the market, our goal was to be innovative, as CAREL products have always aimed to be. We thus succeeded in marketing a product featuring a backlit digital display, able to display multiple information at the same time, while still using the analogue controls that were standard at the time for entering data”. 
  
The nineties then saw the arrival of other products for refrigeration; ir32, which stood out for simple installation, and plug in, a product that sold so well as to make CAREL a leader in the commercial refrigeration market and be recognised as a reliable and flexible partner in an increasingly demanding and structured market. 
  
With the new millennium came ir33 and power compact, however the real breakthrough occurred in 2007 with easy, the new range of controllers that replaced the plug-in and ir32 ranges, with technologically-advanced solutions that further expanded the commercial offering. The most important innovation introduced by easy is the ability to customise the control software: this means that customers can ask CAREL for custom operating logic for their solutions, as well as custom keypads for direct functions. The product has proven to be a true success, with estimated sales of more than fifteen million units since its release. 
  
Over the past ten years, CAREL has started offering the distribution channel easy-to-configure controllers with pre-set parameters that minimise installation times. These are the ir33 smart, easy cool and easy freeze lines. In the same period, the ir33 range also underwent complete restyling, becoming ir33+, retaining continuity with the past yet featuring a new user interface with touch-sensitive keypad, more intuitive to use, with customisable buttons and completely flat mounting, making it much easier to clean in professional environments. 
  
In these last thirty years, CAREL has seen its solutions increasingly adopted as market standards, supported by attention to customer needs and the pursuit of technological innovation. 
  
“Both technology and business models need to evolve relentlessly in order to satisfy a demanding and constantly changing market”, commented Alessandro Greggio, Group Chief Sales & Marketing Officer - Refrigeration. “The real question now is what awaits us in the next few years, in a world that is ever more connected and demanding in terms of human-machine interaction, and with the urgent need to respect the environment and ensure sustainability. How will industry leaders, like CAREL, whose mission is to meet these and other rapidly accelerating needs, respond? The answer will be clear at Euroshop 2020, the next event for commercial refrigeration, now extended to cover both food retail and food service”.