What is your background in the industry and how did IMA Cooling Systems Ltd come to be established?

My family are farmers so I was always around produce. At the time, my uncle operated a small refrigeration company working mainly for potato and apple growers and I worked for him for a while and in the end decided to go into the refrigeration industry when I left school.

Once established there, I followed my roots back to agriculture - I could relate to the farmers and saw an opportunity for a specialist refrigeration company.

I was offered the opportunity to open an office for a large company which at the time did little business for the fresh produce industry, but wanted to establish itself in the sector. I ran the fresh produce side for 11 years and built up a good customer base. Having purchased its high humidity coolers for a number of years, I was aware that IMA had a name which was already known within the industry. I approached them with a view to opening a contracting company in the UK and in the summer of 2000 I set up a separate contractor business under the name IMA Cooling Systems Ltd.

What changes have you seen in the refrigeration business?

In the last nine to 10 years, the biggest change has been the switch in emphasis from capital costs to running costs. The whole industry has been hit by rising energy prices and for produce companies, around 70 per cent of their energy bills are refrigeration consumption.

When we started in 2000, we didn’t even offer energy-saving options. Three years later, we started offering them as standard when more people were showing an interest and now it is one of the first things companies ask us about.

More recently, what kind of an impact has the recession had on the refrigeration business?

In the last 12 months, prices have come under pressure and credit availability has been one of the biggest problems. We have had as many enquiries as ever for new projects but when it has come to talking about budgets, firms have not always been able to secure credit and a high percentage of the jobs have been shelved.

We have coped with this by turning over more enquiries to maintain our current business levels. We will see 2009 as a success if we retain our position in the market.

What other challenges is the refrigeration industry facing?

Long-established businesses will find that R22 is the most widely used refrigerant within their refrigeration systems, having become the favoured replacement in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the ban on CFC refrigerants came in.

However, R22 was always meant to be a medium-term replacement and its use was planned for phasing out by 2015. That deadline has now been brought forward and the use of R22 in its virgin form will now be banned from the end of 2009.

There are a few years’ grace for use of R22 depending on the availability of recycled material, but demand from the hospital and pharmaceutical sectors is so high for recycled stocks that we are advising the fresh produce industry to look for alternatives.

What is the alternative?

Drop-in replacements are viable in 90 per cent of circumstances and are not hugely expensive. This means filling your refrigeration system with a drop-in refrigerant, a CFC-free alternative that can be retro-fitted into your existing system. But this is not a two- to three-hour fix - this process could take maybe 24 hours and to have your plant down for that long can be a problem. We are trying to get programmes in place with our customers to complete transitional work by the end of the year.

However, this is an industry-wide issue that must be dealt with. There is an awful lot of R22 out there and the refrigeration industry is under huge pressure, which is another reason for us to plan for this phase-out now. We are trying to promote this important legislation across the industry but these people are busy trying to keep their businesses afloat, as well as already being under financial pressure.

We can’t do all our customers in one day and have been talking to them for the last 18 months about this problem. Anyone on an IMA contract now has a specifically formulated plan and is well placed to get through this.

The new enquiries we are getting include the R22 question and it is amazing how many companies - often really big companies - don’t know about this issue. It is important to get awareness out there as soon as possible. It is not a question of scaremongering, as the problem can be dealt with, but just providing peace of mind.

If a plant is very old, customers are now wondering if it is better just to install a whole new system. For a lot of people, the R22 issue has brought forward this decision.

Can you give FPJ readers a few examples of your work?

We have really been working on energy-saving technology that is also environment-friendly. In the last six to eight months, we have carried out a major project with Albert Bartlett in Jersey, for cooling and packing Jersey Royals. This is the biggest hydro-cooling facility anywhere in the UK for potatoes.

We have also installed some controlled atmosphere stores for Hill Farm Orchards in Winchester and they have been amazed at the energy reduction per tonne for these new stores compared to their older ones.

For Branston, we have extended its green store with capacity for another 3,000 tonnes of potato storage. This store uses a secondary glycol system, which cuts down on refrigerant charges by 80 per cent. We were also involved in the construction of Branston’s new prepped facility.

Another project we are working on is with Norwich wholesaler McCarthy’s, for whom we are building a new facility that will really set the standard for produce suppliers in East Anglia. It is due to open in January 2010.

One of our initiatives is passive up flow (PUF) stores, which are for long-term storage of root vegetables. This is a revolutionary type of storage that instead of using lots of energy for fans to force air around the store, uses a small fan to take warm air from the top of the store and push it through a unique cooler before distributing it across the floor of the store. Naturally, hot air will rise through the vegetable stacks and this movement requires no additional fan power. Our passive system allows this natural circulation of air.

IMA acquired the rights to build PUF stores five years ago from a Swedish designer. It is expensive as a capital cost but our success is showing that now is the moment for PUF, at a time when people are looking at saving energy and the environment. Our customers for PUF include Branston, Fearns, TIO, Drysdale, Coles and now Kettle Produce.

We also have an ammonia chiller on trial at the moment, which is a completely natural refrigerant option. There is absolutely no ozone depletion or direct global warming potential from one of our glycol systems using the ammonia chiller, and energy use will be even less. We hope to launch this next spring and people are already interested.

Our staff of more than 30 includes four apprentices at different stages of training, and we see our internal training programme as the future of the company.

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