Manor invests £250,000 in r&d lab

UK: Refrigeration equipment manufacturer Manor Concepts has invested £250,000 in a new r&d lab at its site in Sandy, Bedfordshire.  

The investment will enable Manor Concepts to significantly increase its product range of retail cabinets and door products and keep up with European standards

The company operates as two trading divisions: Manor Refrigerated Cabinets and Coolsuredoors. Manor Refrigerated Cabinets supplies a wide range of refrigerated display cabinets for food and drink retailers and Coolsuredoors is a specialist door manufacturer for retail chiller cabinets.

The test room caters for a variety of cabinet sizes up to 4m in length. Using a top-of-the-range data logging system, Manor is able to monitor all the key elements of a cabinet’s functions, including its internal temperatures, the refrigeration system temperature, the refrigerant mass flow and all of its electrical circuits.

Both the environment and the cross air flow within the r&d test centre are controlled by a Trend controller, which allows six pre-set environments to be selected at the push of a button, the UK standard being generally 25ºC and 60%rh.

“We’re already taking full advantage of our new R&D facility, developing essential, energy efficient products that meet the growing demand from the retail trade,” says md Michael Tucker.

“Manor Refrigerated Cabinets has recently launched the Caiman chiller cabinet to the industry. It is our latest, low height produce cabinet, designed by our engineers and tested in our laboratory to optimise its performance.

“We’ve also been working with a customer who wished to change the way meat was displayed in chiller cabinets. By testing various shelf options within our laboratory, we were able to develop a new shelving profile for their cabinets and confirm that the correct product temperature will be maintained on each shelf.

“European standards and requirements are constantly being updated and it is vital that our products not only meet but exceed these standards. Using the latest technology within our r&d centre we can be confident that products from Manor Refrigerated Cabinets and Coolsuredoors will lead the way in terms of design, operation and efficiency.”