Advance has been supplying bespoke lighting and luminaires to the refrigerated display industry for over ten years.  The development of high frequency ballasts and now LED’s has meant ever changing energy efficient solutions..

 

With the increased pressure to cut carbon emissions, coupled with rising energy costs, energy efficiency is a major consideration in the design of display lighting for refrigerated displays.  The harsh environment within the refrigerated display case provides additional challenges to the design of lighting to illuminate the merchandise.

 

Advance has designed and developed some exciting new products for the refrigeration industry.  The Mira and Ara light bar products have been designed and developed with world leading LED chip manufacturers.

.

 

.

For more details about our products and services please contact our Refrigeration Manager on 01332 865777.

.

.

Marks and Spencer has been one of the UK’s best known High Street brands for over 100 years and their name is recognised internationally as a signature for quality.  In January 2007, Marks & Spencer created Plan A, which outlines 100 commitments to improvement by 2012 including the 5 pillars of climate change, waste, sustainable raw materials, fair partner and health.

.

As a part of this plan, Marks and Spencer had to address the lighting of food products within its refrigerated displays.  Advance worked very closely with SPG, one of the leading refrigerated display manufacturers in the UK, to create a solution to address the issue of energy efficiency, along with a number of other issues.

.

Lighting up merchandise within frozen and refrigerated displays has always been a challenge.  Traditionally fluorescent lamps have been used because they are relatively efficient in terms of light output per power consumed and give an even spread of light.  However, standard fluorescent lamps operate the most efficiently at a relatively high temperature (approx 25 deg C).  As the temperature falls, the light output from the lamps diminishes.  So, especially in frozen display cases, the light output can be very low resulting in a poor display of the products.

.

.

An additional problem has been that starting up a fluorescent lamp in low temperatures can also prove troublesome.  Advance had designed and developed the new Tri-Light Super Slimline LED Light Bar which addresses all of these issues.

.

Firstly, LED’s operate better, more efficiently and are more reliable at lower temperatures.  The light emission point at the heart of an LED is called the ‘junction’ and both lifetime and light output are directly proportional to the junction temperature i.e. the lower the temperature the more reliable and the more efficient an LED becomes.  This means that the environment of a refrigerated or frozen display case is ideal for these products.

.

Secondly, LED technology does not rely upon the ‘striking’ of an electrode to light up and so does not have any trouble starting in any temperature.

.

Thirdly, the ultra compact design of these Tri-Light products allowed them to be fitted into the restricted spacing required and the use of the high output LED’s meant that the running costs were very low.

.

All of the above, combined with the decrease in maintenance cost due to the long life of the LED products, resulted in a lighting solution which meant that Marks and Spencer didn’t need a Plan B.

.