The UK-based food wholesaler has been making and supplying sushi to catering companies, supermarkets, hotels, stadia and event organisers across the UK for more than 20 years. With the use of renewable technology and reliability high on the agenda for Tanpopo, the range is said to be the ideal choice for all their frozen and chilled food storage refrigeration requirements.
Peter Bigmore, owner of Tanpopo Japanese Food, comments: “After extensive trialling of another competing product, we chose the Panasonic solution because of its environmentally-friendly credentials. Other key factors were the range’s reliability, the fact the units are compatible with a range of control systems and due to the low charge of CO2 required by the units, no additional leak detection equipment was necessary for this application.”
The Panasonic CO2 Cold Chain units are suitable for both refrigerated and freezer showcases, as well as walk-in freezers and cold rooms. The range available in the UK features units for medium temperature (4kW to 16kW) and low temperature (2kW to 8kW) condensing units.Additionally, 16kW (10HP) units can be connected to provide up to 32kW cooling capacity at medium temperature.
In July 2019, Versan Ltd commissioned and has currently installed four Panasonic 2kW CO2 units at Tanpopo Japanese Food Ltd’s premises in Feltham that replaced four of the R404 systems, two in the low temperature cold rooms at -30°C and two serving as medium temperature chillers at -4°C. Further units are due to be installed to replace all the current R404 systems at the premises.
Xavier Debray, MD of Versan Ltd, says: “One of the pre-requisites for many supermarket chains now is to review their supply chain and their green credentials, such as the use of renewable technology during their processes. The Panasonic units use CO2, a very attractive natural alternative to conventional refrigerant gases.”
Indy Tharnvithian, technical specialist for CO2 at Panasonic, adds: “When installing the Panasonic CO2 range, just two settings are required – vacuum mode and evaporating setting – everything else is pre-set. Obviously if need be, settings can easily be modified with alarms that will indicate any wrong settings. If installers register on the Panasonic Pro-Club website, they will have access to free commissioning tools that includes a cooling capacity calculator, pipe calculator and EEV quick selection tool.”