One of the crucial questions to ask for shop owners or managers is what commercial fridge we should choose. That’s because fridges and freezers play an important part in the kitchen or venue to store stocks that will serve customers.
Are you a restaurant owner, a cafe owner, bar, convenience store runner? Do you need a fridge to run your business? I think all your answers are ‘yes’. Then, when you think about changing, upgrading or newly acquiring new fridge or freezer for your premise, what do you consider the most? Price? quality? dimensions? brands? energy efficient? I believe you gotta check all the factors.
Do you know there are about hundreds of brands of commercial fridges to choose from? As you imagine, as the number of fridges increases, you would get more fed up with what to choose. I have been in the commercial fridge industry for more than 3 years as a service manager and I have witnessed that the majority of end users have little or even no knowledge in fridges. Some customers always look for cheaper options while others seek better quality. However, This is a life lesson that everyone knows about. the better, the more expensive. It means that if you get cheaper brands, you should know that it may more likely break dwon out of nowhere. Imagine if your kitchen is busy with preparing foods and suddenly your undercounter salad prep table seems malfunctioning. As an owner of business, what would you do? Would you still focus on preparing foods to be served? or Would you be paranoid and call your service agent or dealer to rush them to fix the fridge? I guess the latter is more likely than the former. So, choosing quality fridge can go long way and ensure your business runs smoothly without disruption.
Factors to consider when acquiring new fridge
Price
Buying commercial fridges or freezers is one of the big investment decisions to make if you run a catering or hospitality business. Compared with domestic counterparts, commercial ones are always a lot more expensive. That’s because commercail fridges are built to bear with frequent usages. Frequent usages mean its doors are open and close very often. If you use your home fridges, domestic ones in your busy commercial kitchen, they wouldn’t resist the pressure and would fail even within short period of time. That’s why commercial fridges are expensive. But, in the long term, they can keep your business get going. Prices vary though with brands, capacity, dimensions and origins of manufacture. For example, one quality underbench 2 door fridge costs about $4,000 but it will go up to about $5,500 if it is equipped with salad or pizza prep table functions. However, there are always cheaper or more expensive models and brands than that in the market. So, it’s better to talk to someone who knows about brands and fridges before making a buying decision.
Brand
If you are already an shop owner who’s been using commercial fridges for your business, you probably know some of the popular brands in the industry. Skope, William, Turbo Air, Skipio, Coldline, Marchia, Migali, Fresh, Busung Everest and a lot more. If you know about how refrigeration works, material used and spare parts and etc., you can tell they are nearly all the same in functionality and practicality. All the refrigeration systems work with compressor, evaporator, condenser and few other components.
Then, what makes brand more expensive than others? Well, brands are long established in the industry as an intangible asset that makes price up. But, not only that, material used and utilisation of spare parts and technologies used to build a fridge also add to its price. So, if you look around many brands in the same spec, you can easily notice how thick their construction is than others, how nicely stainless steel is finished and what spare parts are used for the system.
Contact your local dealer or supplier to know more about brands and refrigeration before choosing your fridge
Dimensions
When choosing refrigerators for your shop, make sure you measure the space where it goes in. This is usually taken in consideration when you build your shop from scratch by your builder. However, If you don’t want to be let down by realising a chosen unit does not fit in the space where you like it to be placed, please use a ruler to measure it properly.
Tip! please measure some room around your refrigerator because commercial refrigerator requires some room around it to ventilate. This is crucial if you like it to run normal for long time. obstructed ventilation will put pressure on commercial fridges and push it harder to work excessively. This will cause unwanted breakdown no matter how good brand is!.
All sellers have the below spec sheet info. So, please ask them for specsheet like below when enquiring about fridges
BENDGS can provide you with right information and insight when choosing right fridges for your shop. Email us if you like to know more about how to choose a right refrigerator.
Thanks for reading this blog
I hope it helps you with making a buying decision on your fridge
