Collaboration cools food and energy wastage

Up to 10 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to food loss and waste. With energy-efficient refrigeration solutions, supermarkets can ensure that the exact right amount of cooling is applied to prevent food from spoiling – all while conserving overall energy use.

For many years, the food retail industry has been undergoing a sustainable transformation, starting with the transition towards CO2 and other low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants. Digitalisation is a part of the next phase of this journey.

Salling Group and Danfoss A/S have announced a collaboration with Microsoft to empower sustainable food retail through digitisation and help Salling Group achieve its carbon neutral goal.

Part of this project was to develop best-in-class digital services to track temperature and energy use of supermarket refrigeration, to enable preventative maintenance.

Group vice president Communication, CSR & Public Affairs for Salling Group, Henrik Vinther Olesen, says, “There is no doubt that new technologies will play an important role in reaching our targets... We look forward to utilising this new technology and gaining insights that will take us one step further in achieving our goal of removing our carbon footprint and running an increasingly more sustainable business.”

Danfoss’ Alsense, an Internet of Things (IoT) platform built within Microsoft Cloud for sustainability will be used to track refrigeration performance, allowing retail managers to respond to alarms, ensure 24/7 monitoring of food conditions, and reduce energy consumption.

This collaboration is built on a strong foundation. Salling Group and Danfoss have worked together since the 1980s to implement sustainable cooling technology and Danfoss has partnered with Microsoft since 2019.

Microsoft Denmark Enterprise Commercial director Peter Skov, says, “A key challenge for many organisations today, is the ability to gather the right data and act on it accordingly – additionally to record and report on their emissions, which our platform enables.”