Nestlé introduces natural refrigerant freezers to cut emissions

Nestlé is introducing natural refrigerant ice cream freezers across Europe in an effort to phase out the use of potent greenhouse gases, such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFC).


The company has pledged that from now on all new commercial horizontal ice cream chest freezers bought by Nestlé across Europe will use only natural refrigerants.

They will instead use naturally occurring substances such as carbon dioxide, ammonia, water or air and hydrocarbons, like propane and iso-butane, which do not harm the ozone layer and have no or negligible global warming effects.

Nestlé has already introduced 18,000 natural refrigerant hydrocarbon freezers worldwide and invested more than CHF 240 million (£162m) to replace synthetic refrigerants with natural alternatives in more than 92% of its industrial refrigeration systems.

Additional benefits of the new freezers include a decrease in energy consumption by more than a third, in comparison with existing systems.

According to Nestle, the project also moves the company beyond meeting the Consumer Goods Forum Resolution on Refrigeration, which encourages businesses to take action towards phasing out some HFC refrigerants from 2015.

A spokesperson told edie: “We are helping to protect the environment and scarce resources, now and for future generations – improving efficiency in our own operations and involving our partners to continuously optimise the environmental performance of our products along the value chain.

“Therefore we decided to systematically introduce these more environmentally efficient ice cream freezers across Europe which also moves the company beyond meeting the Consumer Goods Forum Resolution on Refrigeration,” the spokesperson added.

Leigh Stringer

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