Supplier press release: How Green is your Garden Centre?
Winterhalter has energy saving ideas for foodservice operations in Garden Centres and Farm Shops
In recent years Garden Centres and Farm Shops have expanded way beyond their initial remit of small shop selling plants and fresh vegetables. Now they are popular weekend and holiday shopping destinations and many have added a café/restaurant to create an even bigger draw.
Those that have branched out into foodservice have found that demand escalates rapidly and they are soon looking to increase their operations to cope. But it's easy to expand the food side without giving proper consideration to essential backroom support such as dishwashing, especially as dishwashers are big consumers of water, electricity and chemicals adding to the overall cost and green credentials of the operation.
To counteract this, Winterhalter, a leading dish and glasswasher manufacturer, has pioneered energy-efficient, green technology for warewashers with a suite of resource-saving ideas, all brought together under the umbrella of irt (Intelligent Resource Technology).
The new Winterhalter UC Energy models of undercounter dishwashers and glasswashers not only offer users substantial savings in energy costs but also improve the working environment around the washer. The UC Energy designs include a new, compact, circulating air heat exchanger that is able to recover heat efficiently in the smallest of spaces. The heat exchanger extracts the energy from the warm, humid water vapour inside the machine and uses it to heat the incoming cold fill.
This reduces energy consumption by 0.1 kWh per cycle. If the machine is put through 80 cycles per day, it can save up to 2920 kWh per year. Plus it improves the room atmosphere, as when the hood is opened very little steam escapes from the machine.
For bigger operations the GS500 Energy+ pass through machine has been developed to offer substantial savings. A newly designed rinse arm significantly reduces water consumption and since the unit uses less water, it also uses less energy (which is required to heat the water), less detergent and less rinse aid.
Inside the GS 500 Series Energy+ is an air-to-water heat exchanger that uses the waste steam to heat the incoming fresh water. An additional water-to-water heat exchanger recycles the heat from the wastewater, using it to further heat the incoming fresh water.
Winterhalter has calculated that using one of the GS500 Series Energy+ machines can save over £1,250 in running costs per year, every year compared to a similar conventional model. Factor in the expected increases in costs and these savings are bound to increase over time.
Winterhalter provides a total solution for warewashing, from pre-sales advice to after-sales service, training and maintenance. Alongside its market-leading dish and glasswashers, the company's range includes utensil washers, advanced water treatment machines, cleaning chemicals and detergents
This press release was provided by Winterhalter
