A professionally conducted energy audit determines whether your commercial freezer really is as indestructible as it looks. Tasked with analyzing the energy envelope inside these insulated enclosures, the tests track waste energy, monitor losses over time, and even identify the reasons for the thermal shortfall. Furthermore, a properly identified energy consumption profile helps govern certain system management factors. For example, harmful organisms can’t exist when freezer and coolroom audits rule supreme.
Reviewing Coolroom Energy Audits
If it helps, picture a traditionally maintained walk-in unit as a two-dimensional auditing system. A couple of thermometers take care of this job. The appliance caretaker places one temperature measuring device in a suspected warm spot, then he places the next one at a known chill zone, perhaps right below the refrigeration unit. Measured via a differential calculation, the energy losses are found. But this is something of an approximation, not a scientifically conducted procedure. True energy audits use time-based temperature monitors, devices that compile a three-dimensional model so that a fully illustrated energy profile is produced. That energy envelope accounts for foot traffic, refrigeration output energy, and wall insulation issues, among many other factors.
Controlling Harmful Organisms
If that audit is conducted diligently, then every conceivable operational factor becomes part of the energy profile. Is the food being handled properly? That factor is established and recorded in the report. That compiled assessment also notes any cross-contamination problems, marks insulation seal damage, and clearly shows the spots where the chamber is experiencing major structural issues. Furthermore, unsanitary pools of water and questionable growths are labelled as actionable trouble sites, places where mildew or mold are beginning their spread. That audit, as it figuratively scours its way through your freezer and coolroom, is sure to uncover hidden growths. As for the immediately obvious patches, the sites where harmful organisms are taking hold, these are quickly recognized when a comprehensively run audit is executed correctly.
Think of freezer and coolroom audits as a weapon in a two-pronged attack. The second part of this food safety program is a maintenance plan. The audit swings into action when system energy ratings incur hefty energy losses. Meanwhile, the maintenance program prevents problems before they occur. Working together, the two techniques stop bacterial growths. As for the audit, this tool looks deeper than a standard maintenance strategy, so deep that it sees exactly where the cross-contamination problems and foot traffic puddles are occurring. Identified in no time at all, the assessment report will also suggest a sanitary solution, one that does away with the harmful organisms before they can impact the stored food.
The briny air pinches the nostrils of the seafood processing personnel as they shuffle in for their next shift. Nearby, the hum of the coolrooms and freezers are maintaining a strictly mandated chill. Happily, safe seafood storage guidelines are properly cooling the large warehouse. All while those frigid temperatures are maintained, the marine product rolls through the seafood processing plant. Down there, among the machinery, are those fish being filleted at a table?
What’s Being Prepared Down There?
That’s a ten out of ten for visual acuity, for those are filleted fish. In point of fact, a seafood processing factory covers more than fish preparation, although this is the predominant ‘catch of the day,’ as it were. Elsewhere in the warehouse, there are crustaceans, so expect the crack of lobster shells, plus the rending of crab soft tissue. The food of the sea also includes all kinds of shrimp and even more types of mollusks. Every single organism on the steel-belted conveyor belt is obviously perishable, which is a trait the food shares with animal meat. Furthermore, seafood tissue is loaded with water, so the refrigeration program has to account for the added moisture. Likewise, shucked and un-shucked shellfish organisms are bound to affect the applied refrigeration temperatures. Basically, the processing temperatures inside a seafood processing factory require special consideration, not the generic chilling program that worked well inside a meat storage facility.
Coping with Contrary Environments
Seafood preparation is a tricky business, so the refrigerated coolrooms and freezers are generally manufactured to quickly facilitate the processing operation. Fish or crustacean, shrimp or mollusc, the temperature matches the marine product. Curiously, as delicate as this work is, the plant layout requires a far more rugged design maxim. The food is sensitive to temperature shock, and it will lose flavour if that chill isn’t maintained. However, this is also a corrosive setting, a place where saltwater coats every exposed surface. Specially treated metal panels, each equipped with an effective insulating barrier, must be installed. Finally, water treatment and salt packing procedures supplement the cooling equipment. They preserve the seafood and filter wastewater from the metal-laced conveyor strips.
This isn’t yet another meat packing or processing factory, it’s a seafood processing plant, a site that maintains water level while also combatting the brine in that fluid. Cross-contamination issues are eliminated in here by carefully segregating the fish from the harvested shellfish. Temperatures are set in each zone to account for the shucked marine products, the filleted fish strips, and a dozen other marine-oriented parameters, all so that the seafood arrives fresh and safe inside a local supermarket cooler.
C&M Coolrooms can create a custom solution for your specific needs. Talk to one of team members today.
