Attendees to the Food Industry Association’s (FMI) 2023 Energy & Store Development Conference, October 2-4, will have a chance to sign up for a new refrigerant leak detection management solution that is working for US food retailers of all sizes, regardless of the type of installation or refrigerant used in the system. Matelex’s award-winning technology has proven itself with over 4,000 installations worldwide. It prepares companies for the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act, passed in December 2020, which authorized the EPA to phase down the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by an aggressive 40 percent in 2024.
“We are proud to work with Matelex to improve operations and to position us as a leader amongst our peers,” says Kurt Luttecke, CEO of Elm City Market, a full-service grocery store in downtown New Haven, CT taking part in Matelex’s pilot program. “We don’t want to pay the anticipated higher costs in refrigerant or install a whole new system. Matelex’ technology allows us to lower cost of operations and help the environment while doing so, and that’s important to us.”
Over the past 10 years Matelex has helped the European market comply with regulations, and can see a scenario in which refrigerant prices increase for US companies and leak detection management becomes mandatory. “If you are an owner of a refrigerant system or you manage one, these regulatory mandates will mean that you’ll need to have a proactive refrigeration maintenance plan in place to detect leaks,” says David Reitz, US Business Development and Strategic Partnerships. “If not, you will likely have to check your systems on a monthly basis, which is costly. Another thing that is costly is not having complete visibility into how many leaks are occurring within a system and where they are."
The company’s patent-pending PolarBox is a remote monitoring device for refrigeration installations, offering 24/7 visibility to owners and technicians. With measurements taken every 5 seconds and data analysis tools, the PolarBox is able to learn the normal operation of an installation in order to identify drifts and alert operators. PolarBox is able to monitor up to 4 refrigeration units by site/shop and all sites and refrigeration units are visible on the accompanying web app, called the PolarVisor. Together, PolarBox and PolarVisor simplify the management of refrigeration installations, improve their performance and drastically reduce their environmental impact.
Reitz will be attending the FMI 2023 Energy & Store Development Conference held Oct. 2-4 at the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland. In attendance with him will be Gary Epright, Technical Advisor and US Pilot Lead to Matelex with over 40 years of refrigeration experience including many brands well known in the US, from Häagen-Dazs ice cream to Wal-Mart.
