CASINO RATES ECOFRIDGE AT THE FOREFRONT OF FUTURE REFRIDGERATION TECHNOLOGY.

Leading food retailer Casino Group chooses ecoFridge nitrogen based refrigeration system for their French logistics operations.

Founded in 1898 the Casino Group is one of the World’s leading food retailers operating across multiple retail formats. With over 10,000 stores worldwide, Casino’s position is most prominent in France where it has approximately 6,000 convenient stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets.

ecoFridge is a unique, environmentally friendly and low cost transport refrigeration system which works in harmony with the environment by producing no carbon emissions and has been awarded the Piek certification for silent running. The Piek certification is the standard for quiet delivery vehicles throughout Europe originally put in place by the Dutch government in 2004. Acoustically measured, the vehicle must function emitting under 60dB at 7.5 metres from the sound source.
Faster and more cost effective to operate than conventional mechanical systems, ecoFridge is virtually maintenance free, is fully ATP certified ( the European standard for thermal efficiency of insulated trailer and truck bodies in the carriage of perishable foodstuffs) and has no operational safety restrictions.

The system works by releasing vaporised nitrogen into the load area from an underslung tank with a capacity of up to 1000 litres and is suitable for all temperature configurations – single, dual and multi temperature.

In April 2008 Frappa the bodybuilder, Casino and the SNTCL transport worked together to introduce the first ecoFridge systems into their existing fleet of 500 vehicles on a trial basis. The 650 litre mono temperature configurations, operated from Grasse in the South of France, are currently being used specifically for Casino’s intercity night operations made possible by ecoFridge’s silent running capability.

“We first heard about ecoFridge in November 2007and were interested in its innovative design and environmental benefits which could help to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and enable us to deliver to city centres by night. We decided to trial the systems in 2008 which have proved to be very successful.” Francois Hebrard, Sustainable Transport Studies Casino went onto say:
“We think ecoFridge is one of the refrigeration technologies at the forefront of future design.”

Following from the success of the trials Frappa, SNTCL’s chosen trailer manufacturer, have recently confirmed an order for 10 ecoFridge systems in both trailer and truck configurations. These vehicles will then be leased to Casino for the transport of perishable goods to their convenient stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets throughout France.

“For our company, the reduction of environmental and noise pollution is fundamental. With that objective we have concentrated our research and development on the production of eco friendly vehicles. The combined use of the ecoFridge systems with our isothermal body is the ideal solution for our customers. For example, if the city centres are accessible to trucks which are silent running for the purpose of night time deliveries, the levels of traffic and congestion will be reduced during the day.” Explains Julien Torre, Frappa CEO.

By 2010 Casino will have a total of 14 vehicles equipped with the ecoFridge systems, the first in the World with such technology.