How do you choose the right display fridge for your shop?

The right display fridge makes it easier for customers to see what’s available, compare products and choose what to buy. It also gives you space to highlight the stock you want to promote.

But with so many options, how do you know which one best suits your shop?

Start with what you sell, how your customers shop and when your team can refill the shelves. Alongside your budget and available space, these details will help you narrow down the cabinets that suit your daily needs.

Here’s our guide to choosing a display fridge for your café, deli, supermarket or shop.

Which type of display fridge suits your products?

The right display fridge for your shop depends on your range. Packaged lunches, bottled drinks and deli food can call for very different cabinet layouts.

An upright glass-front fridge works well for bottled drinks, milk and packaged snacks when you have limited floor space. You can arrange stock across shelves above one another, while customers can see what’s available before opening the door. It’s a useful option for adding a chilled drinks section beside your existing shelving without dedicating a long stretch of wall to it.

A multideck fridge suits a broader range of packaged food, such as sandwiches, salads, yoghurts and ready meals. Its wider frontage lets you display more product lines beside one another, so customers can compare flavours or find the different parts of their lunch in one place. If your current fridge holds enough stock but leaves some products hidden behind others, more shelf frontage could help more than extra depth.

A serve-over counter is good for products such as loose deli meats, cheeses and prepared salads that you sell by weight or portion. Customers can browse through the glass while your staff access the food from behind to slice, weigh or pack it. This keeps the display within your team’s control while allowing customers to choose what they want.

Should you choose a display fridge with doors?

If a multideck suits your range, the next choice is whether to have an open front or glass doors.

An open-front cabinet lets customers reach straight in. There’s no door swinging into the aisle, which can help where space is tight. On the other hand, glass doors reduce heat entering the cabinet while they’re closed, helping lower the cooling demand.

Our multideck fridge range includes both options. Before choosing a model with hinged doors, check how far they project when open. Allow room for someone to stand and select a product while other customers pass behind them.

Check the hinge position, too, particularly if the fridge will sit beside a wall or another cabinet. Some doors can be reversed to open from the other side, but you’ll need to confirm this for the model you’re considering.

How much display space do you actually need?

The first thing to check is the fridge’s capacity, measured in litres. However, this provides only a general overview. For planning your display, check the shelf widths, depths and adjustment positions.

Try arranging your products on a table as you’d display them on a fridge shelf. Put the different varieties side by side, with extra packs behind each one. Measure the width and depth of the arrangement, then compare those measurements with the fridge’s shelf dimensions.

Check the gap between shelves, too. Customers need enough room above a tall bottle to lift it out without catching the shelf above. If you have to raise or remove a shelf to make room, you’ll have less space for other products.

Then check your refill schedule. If lunchtime sales empty one section before anyone can replenish it, that section needs more capacity. There’s little benefit in buying a larger cabinet if most of the extra space goes to slower sellers.

Will the fridge work in your chosen location?

Before committing to a model, check the space it needs to operate. Its external dimensions won’t include every ventilation clearance specified in the installation instructions.

You should also check the maximum ambient rating: the temperature and humidity conditions the cabinet is designed to work within. For example, some shop display fridges specify a maximum of 25°C at 60% relative humidity in your shop.

If your shop gets hot in summer, tell us before ordering so we can check that the fridge is designed to maintain its internal temperature in those conditions.

Check the expected sightlines from the entrance and till. A taller fridge adds display levels but could hide part of the shop you need to see. It might be helpful to ‘build’ the fridge using cardboard boxes so you can visualise its size and placement.

Measure the delivery route as well as the final position, including doorways, tight turns and overhead obstructions. Remember: the packed dimensions can be larger than the cabinet dimensions shown in a listing.

Our standard deliveries are kerbside. If you need help getting the fridge into position or removing an old unit, check our delivery services and arrange the appropriate option before ordering.

How do you compare display fridge running costs?

The energy rating indicates efficiency within the relevant category; it isn’t a prediction of your electricity bill. It’s more useful to look at the stated daily or annual electricity consumption, measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh).

For a simple comparison, multiply annual consumption in kilowatt-hours by your electricity unit rate. As an illustration, a difference of 500 kWh a year would cost £125 at 25p per kWh.

Remember, those figures come from the stated test conditions. Your shop temperature, loading, maintenance and door use will affect the unit’s actual consumption.

Compare running costs between display fridges that can hold the range and quantity of products you need. A smaller cabinet may use less electricity, but will it leave enough room to display each sandwich filling, drink flavour and snack where customers can see it? If you have to hide products behind other lines, hold stock in another fridge or refill the shelves more often than your team can manage, the lower running cost comes with a trade-off.

Find the right display fridge with Fridgesmart

Send us your available dimensions, a list of what you’ll display and a photograph of the proposed location. We’ll help you compare commercial display fridges against your shop’s requirements.

Here are a few good display fridge options to get you started:

• TEFCOLD Atom Maxi C1DB: a single-door upright with adjustable shelves and vertical LED lighting.
• TEFCOLD PC1250B: a wider multideck with glass doors, tilting adjustable shelves and lighting beneath each shelf.
• TEFCOLD Galaxy+ GP10: an open-front multideck for self-service shopping, with adjustable shelves that can tilt and a night blind for covering the display when you’re closed.
• TEFCOLD TAVIRA II 100: a slimline serve-over counter for deli service, with sliding rear doors for staff access and a stainless steel rear shelf for serving.

Contact our team or call 01792 677169 for help choosing a display fridge that fits your stock, space and budget.