2nd June 2025
How to take a bite out of the grab-and-go food market
5 Years parts & labour warranty
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5 Years parts & labour warranty
Brand and Marketing Manager EMEA
According to the UK Food To Go Market Report 2025, it is expected that this year the food-to-go market in the UK will grow by 3.3% to £24 billion.
While it’s encouraging to see market growth, retail businesses are also facing significant challenges, including fluctuating energy costs, rising produce prices, and consumers becoming more cautious with their spending.
Balancing profitability while maintaining product quality and sustainability can feel like a constant struggle.
But what if True could help your retail business save money instantly on energy bills, keep produce fresh and appealing, and support your sustainability goals? Keep reading to discover practical solutions that make a difference.
Assessing your current refrigeration could be the answer to big savings for retail businesses.
According to Uswitch, average business electricity bills can be anywhere from £241 to £1,663 a month, depending on the size of the premises, number of employees, and location.
And with a 2025 report from PwC outlining that nearly nine in 10 (89%) UK businesses used more energy than ever before in 2024, and a further four-fifths (83%) expect to increase their usage even further in 2025, finding ways to cut energy consumption is more important than ever.
One way to reduce costs is by reviewing the type of refrigeration installed in your retail business. Although commonly used at many ‘Grab & Go’ operator sites, open self-serve refrigerated cabinets are not the most energy-efficient cabinet option.
By switching to a more efficient refrigerator, such as glass door displays, you can begin benefiting from huge savings.
In the image below, we’ve compared energy use for an open self-serve refrigerator (or “multideck”), with a comparable size glass door unit. Immediately, you can see the huge difference in energy consumption:
Often, businesses have several retail refrigeration cabinets, meaning there’s even more wasted energy and costs when these inefficient products are multiplied.
Even well-known brands, such as Aldi, have already discovered the savings potential. In the UK, Aldi’s ongoing efforts to minimise its carbon emissions and climate impact include installing fridge doors as standard in its new and newly refurbished stores, following a successful trial.
Others, like Iceland Foods have also followed suit, converting chiller cabinets in Food Warehouse stores to cut energy costs.
By making the switch to glass-door refrigeration, you can fight back against rising energy costs and improve profitability.
As a responsible retail brand, achieving your business goals means considering the environmental impact of your refrigeration.
Since 2021, both open and glass-fronted refrigerated retail merchandisers have been required to meet Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS). The requirements vary depending on whether the cabinet holds perishable food goods or just beverages.
It’s important to note that this energy rating isn’t set by the manufacturer. In Europe, every fridge manufacturer is required to submit their energy ratings to the EU government, who will verify this rating.
By checking these ratings, you can make more sustainable choices when selecting commercial refrigeration for your retail business. To simplify this process, you can use the Energy Label tool to compare energy ratings across the EU.
At True, we make it easy to access energy rating information for our products. Each of our product webpages includes comprehensive technical details, including the Energy Efficiency Charge (EEC), and even allows you to download an energy label. In line with legal regulations, these ratings are also listed on the EPREL site.
When the refrigerators and freezers at Toni’s Treffpunkt had been in use for over 30 years, it was clear they needed an upgrade to something more environmentally friendly.
Their open multideck units were not only less energy-efficient but also struggled to maintain the required temperatures. That’s when True Refrigeration stepped in.
By switching to two freezers from our GDM range, the Treffpunkt store owner saved over 27,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in just nine months – equivalent to around 6,000 Swiss Francs (approx £5,448) in savings.
Below, we’ve included some other ways you can look to cut costs in your retail business.
Keeping your stock fresher for longer helps reduce produce waste, so you can get the most from your ingredients.
This heavily comes down to the kind of refrigeration your business has, and whether it stores your goods at the correct temperature. In retail, this is especially important, otherwise you run the risk of not only food spoilage, but making your customers ill. How many times have you walked into a shop with an open drinks fridge and found the bottles warm inside?
When purchasing refrigeration equipment for your business, if you’re merchandising packaged food goods, make sure you check EPREL that it’s certified for food (i.e. states Type of refrigerating appliance: Supermarket cabinet and not Beverage Cooler) to ensure it can maintain the strict, low temperatures required.
Having reliable refrigeration is key in a retail business, and to ensure this, it needs to be properly maintained. Repair costs can be a considerable expense on top of a possible loss in earnings and wastage of goods.
Cheaper refrigeration is at an increased risk of breaking down because, over time, the parts inside it won’t be able to keep up with the demands of a retail business.
One way of maintaining your equipment is by properly assessing it regularly, checking for any blocked vents and whether you need to replace your door seals – as these are integral to your refrigerator being able to maintain a constant temperature.
It’s also important to have warranty in place. If your refrigerator isn’t working not only does this mean downtime, but potentially also means spoiled food and less product available to be sold. At True, we offer a five year parts and labour warranty as standard on all of our products.
Switching to glass door display refrigeration doesn’t just mean reducing energy bills, it can also enhance turnover by increasing the perceived value of the products inside.
True’s TVMs or ‘Visual Merchandisers’ feature very thin framed glass doors, creating a barrier to help maintain the strict temperature range needed for packaged food retail, whilst also operating efficiently. They also aid in showcasing your products, so customers can see all your offerings easily while being enhanced with our in-house manufactured LED lighting.
Alternatively, our GDMs are designed to combine performance and presentation. With energy-efficient glass doors and high-visibility displays, they make it easy for customers to browse your selection and are particularly well-suited for busy retail environments where quick access and product appeal are essential.
Read our blog if you’d like to find out more on the benefits of switching to glass door refrigeration.
We want to help you make the right choice that will benefit your retail business in the long term, save you money and improve sustainability, which is why we developed the industry’s first Energy Cost Calculator.
Most units that have been in retail businesses for more than a couple of years are often off the current Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) scale in terms of consumption. That’s why we created our calculator, so you can compare operating costs.
If you’re looking to switch from your open-door cabinets to one of our glass door displays, by using the numbers from energy labels (which refrigeration manufacturers are legally required to publish), we can provide an estimated lifetime electrical savings that could be achieved.
Our calculator can also provide relatable Greenhouse Gas equivalency metrics, to help you achieve your carbon reduction goals.
Do you know what your current refrigeration is costing you to run? In the current climate, it might be a lot. It also might be unnecessary. Visit our website here to try out our energy cost calculator and see how you can reduce costs in your retail business.
