Factors Affecting Food Integrity in Retail Stores
The condition of food products from farm-to-table must maintain the required levels of quality to achieve food integrity. According to the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) UK, food integrity is “the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished or in perfect condition.” Though food integrity is famously attached to food safety, it is more than that, especially in the food retail industry. For customers, food integrity relates to their subjective opinion driven by their usage of four senses—sight, taste, touch, and smell. Likewise, from food processing to merchandising food products in retail stores, retailers also play a [...]
More Than a Year into the COVID-19 Pandemic, What Are Consumers Buying Right Now?
As the health crisis continues to evolve, so does consumer purchasing behavior. At the start of the pandemic, several disruptions and changes in buying behaviors emerged and shifted purchasing priorities towards the need for sanitizing products and easy-to-prepare meals and snacks. While in-store shopping is still thriving, online grocery shopping has quadrupled since 2017 with factors such as convenience and safety measures driving the spike. A year into the pandemic, several changes have once again been observed in the food retail industry, especially in how we operate our businesses. However, when it comes to consumers, how much have things [...]
Here’s How You Can Heat Things Up This Summer in Your Food Retail Stores
The summertime, being one of the busiest seasons of the year, has traditionally been a great time for food retailers in terms of customer traffic and sales. Whether people visit their local grocery stores or shop for groceries online, the summer season is expected to excite—resulting in challenges to retailers in more ways than one. Good news—there are ways to heat things up during the summer season in your food retail stores. From showcasing summer food trends to refrigeration equipment maintenance, here are some tips for the hot and busy season: Showcase What’s Hot This Summer BBQ cookouts, family road [...]
Here’s How You Can Heat Things Up This Summer in Your Food Retail Stores
The summertime, being one of the busiest seasons of the year, has traditionally been a great time for food retailers in terms of customer traffic and sales. Whether people visit their local grocery stores or shop for groceries online, the summer season is expected to excite—resulting in challenges to retailers in more ways than one. Good news—there are ways to heat things up during the summer season in your food retail stores. From showcasing summer food trends to refrigeration equipment maintenance, here are some tips for the hot and busy season: Showcase What’s Hot This Summer BBQ cookouts, family road [...]
Common Challenges Businesses Face when Installing Industrial Refrigeration Systems
When building and operating businesses, such as food processing and manufacturing, it primarily requires establishing industrial refrigeration facilities from the ground up. This is true especially when a business starts to grow and expand. Installing industrial refrigeration systems becomes a must and can sometimes end up being a complicated task. Business owners from different sectors face several problems when it comes to their industrial refrigeration needs, ranging from choosing the right refrigeration system to the right refrigerant and technology. Here are some of the common challenges companies face when installing industrial refrigeration systems: Overall Cost of Installation Just like any [...]
Changes in Consumer Demands in Food Retail Stores and the Implications to Retailers
According to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, “There is nothing permanent in the world except change.” When you try to look around you, time has proven that things evolve, circumstances change, and paradigms shift, giving life to new opportunities and innovations. In industries such as food retail, changes are driven predominantly by shifting consumer lifestyles, wants, and needs. What brings consumers value, their demographics and cultural backgrounds, personal interests, and purchasing power are some of the elements that dictate the forces of change in the food retail industry. In the hopes of adapting to the constantly evolving behaviors of consumers, retailers [...]
Hillphoenix Helps Businesses Meet Their Industrial Refrigeration Needs
When putting up or expanding a business, several challenges always come into play. Aside from curating strategies to improve sales, businesses are looking to streamline operations and optimize facilities especially in the food processing and cold storage industry. Across the country, several businesses are feeling immense pressure to find a way to solve their industrial refrigeration needs at the lowest cost possible. From cold storage and food manufacturing applications, they are actively looking for a refrigeration solutions provider to meet their needs. Hillphoenix Industrial Refrigeration has blazed the trail for sustainable, cost-efficient, and practical refrigeration solutions across the country. Hillphoenix’s [...]
Public Workshop: 2022 Scoping Plan Update – Engineered Carbon Removal Technical Workshop
Public Workshop: 2022 Scoping Plan Update - Engineered Carbon Removal Technical Workshop. The 2022 Scoping Plan Update will assess progress towards achieving the Senate Bill 32 2030 target and lay out a path to achieve carbon neutrality no later than 2045. Achieving carbon neutrality will require the State to consider engineered carbon removal both at the source of emissions as well as directly from the atmosphere. Read More >
Trends in the Food Processing Industry That Businesses Should Take into Consideration
The food processing industry has been under extreme pressure since the start of the pandemic. With food safety being one of the top concerns due to consumers’ heightened awareness of health and wellness, the food processing industry has been under a microscope worldwide. Throughout the country, food manufacturing and food storage constitute one of the most important parts of the whole food l ecosystem. Many trends and innovations have emerged in the food processing sector since last year: Increased Food Safety and Transparency Food product recalls for meat, poultry and produce over the years have spiked consumers’ doubts about the [...]
Food Retailers’ Continuous Efforts for a More Sustainable Future
Several food retail organizations across the country are actively adopting sustainable initiatives as looming refrigerant regulations from state and national environmental agencies continue to put pressure on them. The use of natural refrigerants in commercial and industrial applications has been placed in the spotlight aiming to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Now, food retailers and industry organizations are jointly rallying towards a greener future. The North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC), a non-profit organization aiming to promote the advanced adoption of natural refrigerants in the refrigeration industry, is helping food retailers to adopt natural refrigerants in their refrigeration systems by [...]