A Seamless Transition from Standalone to Centralized Refrigeration
If you ever visit Olympia, Washington and you’re looking for a genuine local community experience, visit either of the two Thriftway grocery stores—Bayview Thriftway on Puget Sound or Ralph’s Thriftway downtown. As you walk down the aisles, you’ll quickly notice how the staff know their customers by name and take pride in making them happy.
For Stormans, the local, family-owned company that owns the Thriftway stores, serving the community with a friendly shopping experience is a top priority. One step that Stormans has taken to enhance the experience is its recent refrigeration upgrade. Many of the Thriftways’ refrigerated cases did not have doors, leading to customer complaints that the stores were too cold. The existing refrigeration equipment also needed frequent repairs.
The company decided to partner with Taper in 2022 to deploy new equipment in both Thriftway stores. Taper provides end-to-end project management for optimizing building efficiency with solutions for HVAC, refrigeration, lighting, and water systems.
Up-Front Planning to Minimize Disruption
Stormans wanted a comprehensive refrigeration remodel. This would involve taking numerous existing standalone refrigeration systems offline and replacing them with much larger centralized systems—a complex undertaking. Taper’s goal from the start was to make this year-long project super simple for Thriftway employees and minimize the disruption of store operations.
In the kick-off meeting, Taper showed the store owners and managers a proposed schedule along with store floor plans so that they could visualize the timing and location of all activities. This up-front planning enabled them to arrange for store employees to unload products from the old refrigerated cases and reload them into the new cases upon installation.
One big pain point that came up in the kick-off meeting was unloading and reloading products—a labor-intensive process often made more challenging by the limited cold storage space during the transition. Taper proposed placing refrigerated semi-trailers at each site and using them to store products during the case replacement process, ensuring that no food was lost to spoilage.
From Standalone to Centralized
To make the remodel seamless for store operations, Taper installed the centralized systems in the back of the stores first so that the new refrigerated cases could be quickly connected and brought into service on the sales floor.
The new systems operate more efficiently and use less energy than the previous standalone units. By moving the standalone systems off the roof and replacing them with neatly packaged centralized systems, both stores were also able to significantly reduce their maintenance costs due to ease of access and better, more efficient system design. The centralized systems are also more integrated and less vulnerable to outages.
More Comprehensive Control
At both the Bayview Thriftway and Ralph’s Thriftway, Taper deployed centralized control platforms that enable the stores’ maintenance teams to monitor and control many more operational parameters than was previously possible. Store staff can use the platforms to track operations remotely and quickly adjust system parameters.
Taper also installed smart controls on the stores’ existing anti-sweat heaters in frozen food display cases. Anti-sweat heaters are used to combat the condensation that can form on glass doors and make it difficult for customers to see products. Anti-sweat heaters typically run all the time. The new controls turn on the anti-sweat heaters when condensation is sensed and turn them off when not needed.
New Cases and Doors
Once the centralized refrigeration system and controls were in place, Taper replaced the doorless reach-in refrigerated cases with new cases with doors. The new cases maintain temperatures more efficiently, which improves product freshness.
Taper also retrofitted some of the reach-in refrigerated cases with new doors, further improving efficiency and store aesthetics while making the stores more comfortable for customers and employees.
A Project to Be Proud Of
The Thriftway project accomplished Stormans’ goals without significantly disrupting operations. Taper brought substantial incentive dollars into the equation to ensure that Stormans could maximize its investment. Another key to success was transparent, frequent, and timely communication among all stakeholders.
The remodel has reduced the stores’ electricity bills by 27%. Further, with fewer service calls and repairs needed, maintenance costs are way down.
In addition, the new systems are much better for the environment. Both stores transitioned to R448a, a refrigerant with nearly 70% lower global-warming potential than the R404 refrigerant that was previously in use. The new refrigerant keeps the stores in compliance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s hydrofluorocarbon phasedown schedule for at least the next 10 years.
“We recently walked through the stores with the Taper team for our one-year post-project assessment,” said Thriftway Stores Co-Owner Kevin Stormans. “I was amazed at how brand-new everything looked. I’m grateful to Taper for allowing us to give our community a better shopping experience. I feel proud about the success of this project.”
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