Following cold room temperature mapping protocol can help both businesses and individuals who use cold room freezers or fridges. Cold room mapping protocol helps limit temperature variation within fridges or freezers, which helps to reduce ruined stock – especially if you work with perishables, such as fresh food produce or drinks.
But does this mean that you should implement a cold room temperature mapping protocol within your business? And if so, what are the other benefits of this?
Our cold room experts are here to explain it all…
How To Complete Cold Room Temperature Mapping
Temperature mapping describes the process of recording and mapping temperatures within 3D spaces (in this case, a walk-in cold room) to check that all areas comply with safe temperature ranges.
In the simplest of terms, the key steps for temperature mapping in your cold rooms include:
1) Placing sensors around the space you want to measure in your cold room – You might not want to temperature map your entire cold room, but it is recommended for good practice!
You especially want to measure areas of your cold room that might be warmer or cooler than the specified safe temperature ranges for your industry and products.
Around 20 sensors are considered an appropriate amount for a medium-sized cold room, so you may need more or less depending on the size of your cold room and requirements.
2) Ensuring temperatures are recorded at specified, regular intervals – It’s recommended that you continuously record cold room temperatures for a minimum of 48 hours to get an accurate, average reading of your cold room’s temperature.
3) Reading and transferring recorded temperatures to a 3D model of the room – Once you have your cold room temperatures recorded, the data can then be transferred to a model, using a specialist software of your choosing.
This model of your cold room should include the minimum, maximum, mean, and mean kinetic temperature values recorded from your cold room to give you the most accurate results.
4) Examining the data – After collating all of your results (most commonly completed with a computer-based application in Microsoft Excel®), you will need to carefully examine the findings to understand which areas of your cold room need additional refrigeration systems to improve cold room temperature.
You should then designate these areas as unusable until the temperature range is rectified to ensure goods are stored safely, within given legal bounds.
Which Areas of a Cold Room Are Commonly Outside of the Specified Temperature Range?
In your cold room, there are bound to be slight temperature variations, caused by several factors. One factor which we briefly discussed above was the size of your cold room – with large walk-in cold rooms varying in temperature up to +10°C throughout the whole cold room.
However, there will be areas in your walk-in cold rooms that vary in temperature because of where they are positioned. Irrespective of whether you have a cold room fridge or cold room freezer, the following areas are more prone to temperature variations:
Corners
The corners of your cold rooms will experience different temperature ranges compared to the centres of your cold room.
Usually, this is due to air distribution in your cold room – if your corners are further away from the main refrigeration systems there are bound to be temperature variations, and typically square-shaped cold rooms are prone to temperature differences in the corners.
To ensure that your cold room has no warm spots in the corners, you need to make sure that there is sufficient airflow around the room and that the correct refrigeration system and fan arrangement are used, to ensure hotspots and temperature variations are less of an issue.
Dry stores / ambient rooms
Temperatures will be higher closer to the ceiling than the floor due to the simple fact that heat/hot air rises and cold air sinks.
Ambient areas can maintain temperatures from +10°C to +30°C, meaning that any heat will naturally rise to the top of the cold room – causing a variation of temperature.
Refrigeration Units
Your cold room temperatures will be colder/lower next to your refrigeration units for the simple fact that they are closer to the unit responsible for controlling and maintaining your cold room’s temperature.
Whether your walk-in fridge is maintaining +4°C or your walk-in freezer is maintaining -25°C, you will experience a colder temperature in areas near to your refrigeration systems – such as your split refrigeration or monoblock refrigeration systems.
Cold Room Doors
Walls opposite the cold room doors are likely to be warmer because they are positioned further from your refrigeration systems and ambient air could enter due to the seals around the cold room door.
Similarly, if employees are entering and leaving regularly then the temperature near the cold room door is bound to be warmer due to the influx of unrefrigerated air!
Benefits of Cold Room Temperature Mapping
There are probably more benefits than you may have thought when it comes to cold room temperature mapping. These benefits show how mapping your cold room temperature can help protect your business, cold room, and products!
These benefits include, but are not limited to:
Limiting Temperature Variance
By mapping your cold room temperature and recording your data this can help to reduce the amount of temperature variance your cold room experiences.
Cold room temperature mapping can reduce temperature variations, and if acted upon, it will highlight the areas of your cold room that are more prone to variations. This means that you can either:
- Adjust your cold room layout so your products remain in an area that keeps a consistent temperature
OR
- Invest in more refrigeration systems to achieve this consistent cold room temperature
Keeping Stock in the Best Condition and Reducing Waste
If your business produces food, drink, or any product that requires a specific temperature range to be maintained, then it’s incredibly important that your cold room temperatures don’t vary – even more so if your products will be consumed!
By conducting cold room temperature mapping, your stock to be kept in the best condition and in turn, reduce your waste! If your products are kept at the wrong temperature, not only will they be low-quality (and likely ruined) but they will need to be disposed of – which is totally avoidable.
Government data on interrupted cold chain protocol has revealed that 4.8 million tonnes of food products are wasted in the UK supply chain yearly – that’s enough to feed everyone in the UK for 39 days! By reducing waste where you can, you can limit the environmental impact of your business and also safeguard business profits.
Ensuring You Comply with Health and Safety Legislation
Businesses must comply with the health and safety regulations for their industry, and some are much more stringent than others.
For example, within food and drink industries storing food at specific temperatures is critical. It’s a legal requirement in the UK that cold food must be kept at a constant temperature of +8°C or below.
Also, some foods and drinks are high-risk, such as dairy-based products or raw meats, meaning they must be kept refrigerated to keep them safe for human consumption.
To ensure you are complying with the health and safety legislations of your industry, we recommended that you follow cold room temperature mapping protocols – why take the risk?
Why You Should Map Your Cold Room Temperature
Cold room temperature mapping is an essential first step to understanding where the temperature fluctuates within your cold rooms, how to correct the temperature range fluctuations, and to help prevent any damage to both your products and your business that can occur as a result of these changes.
To keep your cold rooms in the best possible conditions you should also regularly maintain and refurbish your cold rooms – as faulty refrigeration systems may be another reason as to why you’re experiencing temperature fluctuations!
If you have any questions on the cold room temperature mapping protocol, or you’d like to learn more about how cold room temperature mapping could help your business, then please get in contact with our experts today.
Email us at sales@mtcss.flywheelsites.com, ring us on 01886 833 381, or fill in an enquiry form below and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can.
