At ARBS 2016, Melbourne was introduced, for the first time, to Beijer Ref Australia.
While the Swedish company has a long history of almost 150 years, Beijer Ref Australia was born when the business took over Realcold and Patton locally.
Carrying world-leading brands and specialising in tailor-made solutions, the new company has a particularly strong focus on supermarkets, CA stores, dairy and cold freezer storage.
With 20 outlets around the country, in both metro and regional locations, the company now has a greater national spread and access to world-renowned brands.
“We’ve started our journey into wholesale and continue to expand,” the general manager of Beijer Ref, Craig Bicket, explained. “Our ideal is to expand our footprint, to meet the customers' needs.”
The key product at this year’s ARBS Exhibition was the SCM Frigo, a CO2 transcritical rack, used primarily in supermarket applications. Designed and manufactured in Italy, SCM Frigo is respected throughout Europe as one of the leaders in natural refrigerant technology.
“It's embracing technology with natural refrigerants, so CO2 has zero GWP and no impact with the ozone layer,” Bicket said. “It’s the green friendly version, I suppose, of creating refrigeration.”
Unlike other products, its design is such that the SCM Frigo is perfect for climatic conditions anywhere around the country.
“The transcritical side means it can operate in all conditions in Australia, so from the south of Australia right through to the tropics of the north,” Bicket said.
“The natural refrigerants channel is now such that the supermarket industry, the leaders in the supermarket industry - Coles, Woolworths - are committing to CO2 as their primary product of choice for all their refrigeration needs.”
Also on show was Beijer Ref’s range of Patton evaporators, which are manufactured in the company’s facility in Thailand, including its Patton Pak refrigeration units, its open-base units with Copeland ZB & ZF scroll compressors from 2.0 to 15.0 hp for small/medium/large cool rooms and freezer rooms using R404A and R134a, as well as the open semi-hermetic units with Copeland and Frascold semi-hermetic compressors from 1.5 to 20.0 hp.
Meanwhile, the company took the opportunity to demonstrate its broad range of world-leading brands: Copeland Scroll Compressors, Dixell controls, Danfoss compressors, Javac vacuum pumps, Unada fans, Gree air conditioning and its range of A-Gas refrigerants and Testo’s smart tools.
In the coming year, Beijer Ref will be focusing on its continuing growth across Australia. With distribution in 32 countries, the company is looking to expand its footprint here.
“We’ll be focusing on a consolidation of the business and moving into a growth journey,” Bicket said. “There’ll be more outlets across the country in the near future.”
For more information, visit www.pattonau.com.