Heatcraft Cuts Ribbon on Innovation Center

Heatcraft Worldwide Refrigeration, a global provider of commercial refrigeration solutions, put out the welcome mat at its new Innovation Center in Stone Mountain, Ga. At the grand opening, company officials said the state-of-the-art facility highlights the company’s more than 125 years of refrigeration expertise with global innovative products, training services and high-tech laboratory all designed to provide added customer value. “The opening of the Heatcraft Innovation Center marks an exciting time for our company as it will further strengthen our capabilities of providing best-in-class refrigeration equipment and complete systems to our customers,” said Larry Golen, vice president and general manager for Heatcraft North America. The innovation center is open retailers from around the world, say company officials. “This is a place where retailers can come to touch the equipment and sit with our refrigeration professional to work on designs,” Todd A. Hoff, Heatcraft’s vice president of global marketing and product development, told Grocery Headquarters during a visit to the center. The Heatcraft Innovation Center includes an equipment and systems showroom, training facility and an expanded global laboratory. The new development center represents a 15,000 square-foot expansion of an existing 30,000-square-foot lab. The showroom, which was designed with input from D|Fab, a retail design firm based in Madison Heights, Mich., replicates a retail food environment. There are more than 60 refrigeration solutions on display, including a wide range of coolers and freezers for the deli, bakery, meat, produce and frozen food departments. Various configurations of fully merchandised cases are on display so that retailers can see how the same freezer case looks with different doors options, for example. A variety of refrigeration systems are also on display in a mechanical room setting including products such as the recently launched Slim Contour Unit Cooler, the refrigeration remote control monitoring system, the environmentally friendly Microchannel Air-Cooled Condenser platform, and the GreenChill awarded CO2 Refrigeration System.