Food processing plants are among America’s biggest consumers of refrigeration power.
When you walk into the local grocery store and enjoy the blast of cool, conditioned air, you know you’re stepping into an environment with plenty of refrigeration equipment at work. In a food processing plant, it may be necessary to have double or triple the number of refrigeration compressors.
With an astounding $119 billion in annual revenue, Kroger is the biggest supermarket chain in the world and the third-largest retail company of all. Its closest U.S. competitor is Albertsons, with nearly $60 billion in revenue.
Among businesses that rely on commercial refrigeration, few have needs as intensive as meatpacking plants.
Refrigeration must begin the instant that animal processing starts. Freezer storage must be maintained at below zero temperatures to meet all needs. Cooling, cutting, and processing call for extreme cooling at consistent levels. Bacteria can develop and spread if refrigeration lapses.
Grocery stores are unique among common neighborhood businesses for their high refrigeration needs.
Not only do grocery stores dedicate more square footage to refrigeration than the average business, but they also utilize a wider variety of refrigeration systems. For example, smaller commercial compressor units are often chained together to provide support for cooled cases and displays.
You might not think of them as farm equipment, but commercial compressors are among the most important machines on virtually any farm. Powering some of the most demanding refrigeration systems around, they are indispensable to both dairy and meat farms. The bigger the farm, the more refrigeration capacity is needed.
One unexpected outcome of the public health crisis of 2020 is that more people than ever now want to know about the topic of meat processing and packing. Meat processing is essential to the American diet and to the agricultural supply chain, yet few people truly have a deep understanding of the details.
Have you ever wondered about how cheese makes the journey from the farm to your table?
Americans love cheese. In 2018, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the average American consumed approximately 15 pounds of American cheese alone. The average person could also be expected to eat about 22 pounds of non-American cheese, including pizza mainstays like mozzarella.
In fact, the numbers suggest mozzarella is now unassailable as America’s #1 cheese.
Dairy farming is one of the most complex supply chains in modern agriculture.
Milk begins to go bad at any temperature above 40 degrees Fahrenheit. It is so sensitive to the air around it that even in one of the most thoroughly refrigerated environments, the grocery store, it is still important for personnel not to stack dairy products too high in display cases.
You might not think about it much, but bananas have changed a lot in the last few centuries!
Today’s sweet yellow bananas are a relatively recent development. Early bananas were green or red. They could be prepared using a wide range of cooking methods. They were also much smaller than the bananas on grocery store shelves today: Often less than half the size of sweet yellow banana.
In the years since the 1906 founding of the FDA, the meat packing industry has made tremendous strides in its safety and product quality. Today’s meat processing plants are extraordinarily advanced. They incorporate some of the most sophisticated commercial refrigeration and temperature control technologies of any industry.
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