Refrigeration specialist adds value through project management

REFRIGERATION is hot business, with a growing number of fullscale refrigeration projects for the perishables industry keeping Cape Town-based GEA Project solutions busy at the ‘cold’ face. “Demand from the fruit industry is thriving with continual orders for refrigerated atmosphere rooms (RA) and controlled atmosphere rooms (CA),” says Ilse van der Merwe, manager of GEA project solutions, part of refrigeration specialists Grenco Group. “We are also doing a number of forced air-cooling tunnels, process area cooling and de-greening rooms.” The GEA installation management team custom designs and optimises the entire facility including the civil engineering and structural steelwork, insulated panelling and electrical reticulation. Van der Merwe adds: “The refrigeration unit is designed to optimise the capital cost against the operating cost.” The company has also installed a number of flake ice bunkers for the fishery industry and airline chillers for the poultry industry. “Cold means fresh,” says Van der Merwe. “Our cold stores go down beyond -20°C from ±0°C, which means they can freeze meat and poultry, or keep fruit and veg, flowers and wine ready for export. “A single point solution offers reduced project management fees and GEA Project Solutions does not charge any consultant’s fee on the refrigeration portion of the project, which normally represents one third of a project’s value,” says Van der Merwe.