What Size Display Fridge Does Your Shop Actually Need?

Start with linear metres, not litres

Manufacturers quote litres, but shopkeepers buy in linear metres. A multideck (the open-fronted, shelved cabinets you see in convenience stores) is normally sold in 1.25m, 1.5m, 1.875m and 2.5m widths, and you can bolt several together into a run. What matters is how many metres of chilled frontage your product mix needs.

As a rough starting point: a small newsagent or takeaway getting by on cans, milk and sandwiches usually needs 1.25m to 2.5m. A typical convenience store with chilled ready meals, dairy, meat and soft drinks tends to land between 6m and 12m of chilled frontage plus a separate freezer. A butcher or deli works differently again, because serve-over counters are sized by how much you display per session rather than by shelf space.

• Count your fastest-moving lines and how often you want to restock: if you are refilling the same shelf twice a day, you are short on frontage, not short on stock
• Allow around 20 percent spare capacity for seasonal peaks and new lines
• Deck depth matters as much as width: 700mm to 800mm deep cabinets hold far more than a 500mm slimline, but they eat aisle space

Measure the space, then measure the route in

Before anything else, check the delivery route. Plenty of older shop units around Rotherham town centre, Wickersley and Maltby have Victorian frontages with doorways under 900mm, and a standard multideck is often 800mm to 900mm deep in its packaging. We have had to strip doors off frames and remove shelving more than once. Measure the narrowest point on the route, not just the shop door.

In the shop itself, leave a clear aisle in front of the cabinet. Around 1.2m is comfortable for a trolley and a customer passing, and you need it anyway for wheelchair access under the Equality Act. Above the cabinet, leave at least 100mm to 200mm of clear space so the condenser can breathe, and never box a cabinet in against a radiator, an oven line or a sunny south-facing window.

Power and heat: the bit that catches people out

A single 1.25m integral multideck typically draws somewhere in the region of 500W to 900W running, with a higher startup surge. Two or three of those on the same 13A socket circuit alongside a coffee machine is asking for nuisance tripping. If you are going beyond roughly two cabinets, it is usually worth a dedicated spur or a small board rather than daisy-chaining extension leads.

Integral cabinets (compressor built in) are simpler and cheaper to install, but they dump their waste heat into your shop, which is noticeable in a small unit in summer. Remote cabinets run off an external condensing unit outside, which is quieter, cooler and more efficient over a long run, but the pipework and commissioning add meaningfully to the install cost. As a rule of thumb, once you are past about 6m of chilled frontage, remote starts to pay for itself on running costs and on shop comfort.

Match the cabinet class to your shop's conditions

Display cabinets are rated by climate class, and this is where a lot of secondhand bargains fall down. A class 3 cabinet is tested to hold temperature at 25C and 60 percent humidity. If your shop hits 28C on an August afternoon because the door is propped open, a class 3 unit will struggle to hold products at the legally expected 8C or below, and you will see icing, long run times and shortened compressor life.

Also think about what you are actually chilling. Open multidecks are fine for pre-packed goods, but if you are displaying unwrapped meat, fish or cheese, you want a serve-over with the right humidity control, and food safety rules will push you towards a glass-fronted or covered display anyway. Night blinds on open cabinets are cheap and typically cut overnight energy use by a useful margin, so factor them in when comparing sizes.