Hoshizaki provides guidance on latest legislation

Hoshizaki has issued guidance on the upcoming legislative changes, which Simon Frost, Director UK & Ireland, describes as the “the largest change in living memory within the commercial refrigeration sector.”

The majority of upcoming legislative changes within the commercial refrigeration centre around sustainability, protecting our environment and minimising global warming impact. For example, from 2020, refrigeration manufacturers will be prohibited from using refrigerants with a Global Warming Potential (GWP) factor exceeding 2500, as Simon elaborates:

“To put this change into perspective, many refrigeration and freezing installations currently use refrigerant R404 – which has a GWP factor of 3200 – making it well above the new limit.”

As a company that has, and continues to put sustainability first, Hoshizaki has been an early adopter of sustainable refrigeration solution, such as natural refrigerants, as Simon explains:

“As global leaders in commercial refrigeration and ice making equipment, Hoshizaki understands the importance of offering the greenest solutions at a competitive price. This is why we took the decision to begin phasing out Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) units in January 2019, replacing them with significantly greener, Hydrocarbon (HC) models. These will be sold at a lower purchase price than the remaining HFC appliances in order to encourage operators to make the switch ahead of legislative changes in 2020.”

A change that is being implemented much sooner than 2020, which both manufacturers and operators must be aware of, is amendments to Energy Labelling. From July 2019, energy labels will be changing from the current ‘A+++ to F’ categorisation, to ‘A+++ – E’, in order to further push manufacturers and operators towards a more sustainable refrigeration future.

‘A+++’ represents the most efficient unit, ‘E’, the least. These ratings take into account factors such as energy consumption, storage volume, and whether or not the appliance has a freezer compartment etc.

Whilst these changes are important when making a purchase decision, Simon also advises that operators take into account the unit’s climate class:

“Climate class readings detail the conditions by which an appliance has been tested, with climate class 1 being the lowest and climate class 5 being the highest. In order to run efficiently in a hot and humid professional kitchen, operators should be looking at a minimum of climate class 4 tested appliances (30°c ambient temperature and 55% relative humidity) or ideally the top-level climate class 5 (40°c ambient temperature and 40% relative humidity). This indicates that in a virtually tropical environment of a busy kitchen, units will still operate efficiently.”

All Hoshizaki appliances are tested to climate class 4 or 5 meaning an operator can be confident that their refrigerator or ice machine will be able to withstand the demands of a commercial kitchen in an exceptionally energy efficient way.