Commercial and Industrial Walk-in Freezers
MTCSS designs, supplies and installs walk-in freezers, also known as freezer cold rooms or freezer rooms, for food manufacturers, restaurants and hotels, butchers, pharmaceutical businesses and cold storage warehouses across the UK. We build everything from modular freezer rooms that go up in a day or two to large bespoke holding, pull-down and blast freezers designed around your site and stock.
What is a Walk-In Freezer?
A walk-in freezer is a room your staff can walk into and stock like a storeroom, held at a set temperature below 0°C. Most frozen food should be kept at -18°C or colder, in line with Food Standards Agency guidance, and MTCSS can build rooms that run as low as -40°C for products that need it. Compared with a walk-in fridge, which holds chilled stock between 0 and +8°C, a walk-in freezer uses thicker insulated panels, an insulated floor to protect against frost heave, and a refrigeration system sized for the larger temperature drop. Walk-in freezers are used across:
- Food and drink manufacture, storage, and retail
- Eateries like hotels and restaurants
- Pharmaceutical, healthcare, and medical establishments
- Warehousing and distribution
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Types of Walk-In Freezers
Walk-in freezers, also referred to as freezer cold rooms or freezer rooms, are generally used to keep already frozen products frozen or to freeze chilled/ambient products.
Depending on your requirements, MTCSS can design and install one of the following industrial walk-in freezer types, so you have the functionality and space you need for day-to-day operations. This includes:
- Holding Freezer Cold Rooms – These are used to store already frozen products and keep them at the right temperature to stop defrosting
- Pull-Down Freezer Cold Rooms – This type of walk-in freezer can freeze chilled or ambient products to make them suitable for extended storage
- Blast Freezer Cold Rooms – These use more powerful refrigeration systems to freeze chilled and ambient products quicker than a pull-down freezer, offering superior preservation of food quality, texture, and nutrients
Walk-In Freezer Sizes: Modular and Bespoke
Our modular freezer rooms use MTH cam-locked panels in set sizes from 1020mm to 3620mm internally, with 80mm, 100mm or 120mm panels depending on the insulation you need, an insulated anti-slip floor, and temperatures down to -20°C. That covers most holding freezers for kitchens, butchers and retailers, and because the panels lock together without cutting or sealing, a modular room is usually assembled in a day or two. Full dimensions are in our modular cold room spec sheet.
For anything larger, colder than -20°C, or built to an unusual footprint, we design a bespoke freezer room, specifying the panels, cold room doors, flooring and refrigeration system around what you store and how often the door is opened. Bespoke rooms are also the route for pull-down and blast freezers, and for dual-compartment rooms that pair a freezer with a walk-in fridge.
Benefits of a Commercial Walk-In Freezer
There are many benefits of a commercial walk-in freezer, which make it a popular upgrade for businesses across the country, such as:
Superior temperature control
With consistent and precise temperature maintenance, plus the ability to add alarms if recorded temperatures change, the quality and safety of goods are protected, and their lifespan is maintained.
Vastly increased storage capacity and flexibility
An under-counter or even free-standing commercial freezer often comes with a limited capacity of around a couple of hundred litres. Walk-in freezer rooms can competently handle tens of thousands of litres, in any layout needed for your current and future stock levels.
Improved accessibility
Allowing staff to easily enter, restock, and even use wheeled machinery like forklifts with space to manoeuvre, getting what they need is simple and fast.
One room to monitor and maintain
Replacing several standalone freezers with one room means one temperature log to check, one refrigeration system to service and one door to manage, which makes stock rotation and food safety records simpler. A walk-in freezer uses more electricity per day than a single standalone unit, so the case for one is capacity and control rather than lower energy bills.
Increased customisation and longevity
Designed bespoke to your needs from the outset, walk-in freezer rooms will meet your business needs perfectly, with any customisation you require. From interior shelving layouts, the size, the door type, and more, you have complete control. Many of these components are also replaceable, too, making it easy to keep on top of cold room refurbishment and maintenance, too!
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We will work with you to understand your business and its processes, so we can help design your perfect cold storage solution.
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Choosing the Right Walk-In Freezer
To ensure you choose the right walk-in commercial freezer for your needs, you need to consider the following:
- Application
- Do you need to keep already frozen stock frozen, or freeze products from fresh? If you are taking in fresh products to freeze, how quickly does this need to happen?
- Size
- The size of your unit should give enough room to store everything and be accessed comfortably, without wasting energy.
- Location
- Where you need it in the room, the floor it’s on, and whether it is indoors or outdoors will influence design and installation.
- Refrigeration system
- All-in-one units, like monoblocks, offer simple installation and plug-and-play usability, while remote systems may be better for larger or more demanding environments.
- Build quality
- Choosing trusted, experienced cold room design and installation teams will ensure that your freezer cold room meets your needs and lasts for as long as possible when partnered with appropriate maintenance.
If you’re not sure which way to go on any of these, our team will work through them with you at the site survey.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Power consumption will depend on the size and usage of your industrial walk-in freezer. It typically uses around 15 – 40 kWh per day, while a standalone freezer might use around 1 – 3 kWh.
While their daily and annual power usage is higher, you can keep much larger quantities frozen with much tighter control over the accuracy of the temperature, making it more efficient in the long run.
There may also be ways to use the energy more efficiently, including by increasing insulation, choosing the right kind of cold room door, and much more.
Contact MTCSS if you want to find ways to ensure your cold room is running as productively as possible.
Seeing frost in your walk-in freezer typically indicates that there is an air leak. This air leak could be caused by a range of things, such as:
- The age of your cold room
- Poor cold room door and frame set-up
- Your cold room door is being left open for too long
- Issues with your evaporator system
Ice build-up poses a risk in your cold rooms due to the health and safety risks associated with it, damaging your products and potentially getting personnel stuck in your walk-in freezers. So, it’s essential that you get in touch with a maintenance team to correct the issue as soon as possible.
For more detail, see our guide to four reasons you may be seeing frost in your cold room.
For most frozen food, the Food Standards Agency’s guidance is to store it at -18°C or colder, so that’s the usual target for a holding freezer. Some products need colder storage, and MTCSS can build freezer rooms that run as low as -40°C. If you store pharmaceuticals or other non-food products, the manufacturer’s storage requirements set the range, and we’ll design the room around them.
Absolutely! It isn’t a requirement for you to have a business in order for you to invest in any temperature-controlled storage.
If you have an idea of where you’d like your walk-in freezer to be installed, how much room you have to build your walk-in freezer, and what you’re intending to store in there, then our team can design a walk-in freezer that’s bespoke to you.
As a rough guide across the UK market, an off-the-shelf walk-in freezer room with a plug-in refrigeration unit starts at around £6,000 plus VAT, and larger remote-condenser freezer rooms reach around £16,000 plus VAT before installation. Installed walk-in freezers typically cost from £6,000 to £25,000 or more depending on size, with a further £1,000 to £5,000 if the site needs groundwork, drainage or new power. Freezers cost more than walk-in fridges of the same size because they need thicker panels, an insulated floor and more powerful refrigeration.
We price every room after a free site survey, and you can spread the cost through finance and leasing.
Yes – walk-in freezers must have a floor to avoid frost heave, and you must make sure your walk-in freezer is optimally insulated for your products.
Frost heave describes the upward swelling of moisture pockets on the floor of your walk-in freezer that contributes to an unsafe cold room because of unlevel or loose flooring.
MTCSS can help you choose the right cold room flooring for your walk-in freezer, whether it’s a new room or an existing floor that’s started to lift.
The easiest way to keep your walk-in freezer maintained and in optimal working order is by cleaning it regularly and investing in regular cold room maintenance.
This maintenance will allow elements of your walk-in freezer to be replaced as needed, improving the efficiency and overall safety of your freezer cold room.
Investing in cold room maintenance also allows our team to thoroughly clean all elements of your cold room – including areas that would be neglected/easily missed by regular and routine cleaning schedules.
Cold room condition reports from MTCSS can help you identify the parts of your walk-in freezer that could benefit from cold room maintenance.
The most serious risk is someone being trapped inside, usually because the door has been closed or locked from outside, or a broken handle or frame stops it from opening. At freezer temperatures, this becomes dangerous quickly, so every walk-in freezer door should have an internal safety release, and an entrapment alarm gives anyone inside a lit push button that sets off an audible and visual alarm outside, with battery backup if the power fails. The other common risk is ice building up around the door and floor, which makes surfaces slippery and can stop the door from sealing or opening properly. Regular cold room maintenance keeps both in check, and our article on what happens if you’re locked in a walk-in freezer covers what to do in an emergency.
Case Studies
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Cold Rooms & Fit Out for Farm Shop, Butchers & Deli
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Read MoreSteves Family Butchers now has a fantastic refurbished cold room, which actually looks like a whole new cold room thanks to MTcss cold storage solutions. We found they responded in a very quick and helpful manner which meant that they communicated well with us and kept us informed well. The refurbishment was completed to a very high standard in a professional manner. We are exceptionally pleased with the service that we received.