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John Austin-Davies is ACR Champion

UK: John Austin-Davies, former director of Epta UK, won the ACR Champions Award at last night’s National ACR & Heat Pump Awards in Manchester.

The annual awards, organised by ACR Journal, also recognised the contribution of women in the industry by naming Jacinta Caden, business development manager at Integral Refrigeration, as ACR Woman of the Year.

The award to John Austin Davies marked his 40 years in the refrigeration industry from his initial footsteps at Prestcold Ltd to his 28 years at Epta (formerly George Barker). 

Other major winners included the SCM Frigo Cubo2 CO2 condensing unit being named Refrigeration Product of the Year, and a further award for Toshiba’s Super Digital Inverter, with its Smart cassette picking up the award for Air Conditioning Product of the Year. 

Birkenhead-based Sure Solutions was named Contractor of the Year, while Cool Concerns was recognised as ACR Training Provider of the Year.

Beijer Ref company HRP was named Wholesaler/Distributor of the Year.

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Panasonic adds compact R290 heat pumps

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Cyber firm claims over 800 UK supermarkets vulnerable to attack

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Security firm warns on refrigeration asset security

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12th October 2026

Danfoss moves to mitigate cyberattack

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Bitzer debuts screw compressor for data centre cooling

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