Frozen fruit and vegetable specialist Ardo UK has slashed its cold store lighting electricity bill by 97% in the past three months by investing in LED technology.

The company replaced traditional fluorescent tube lighting at its 80,000m3 cold store HQ and processing centre at Charing, Kent in June and is now consuming just 3% of the electricity previously used.

The Digital Lumens technology works via sensors, which detect when an area is unoccupied for more than 30 seconds. The lights turn off until the sensor is reactivated. In frequently used aisles, the lighting automatically dims to 20% during periods where they are not occupied.

“The savings are so high because with our previous system, large areas of our facility were unoccupied at any given moment, but we had to leave our old lighting on,” said Jon Barnes, Ardo UK supply chain and inventory director.

“The extraordinary savings mean we should have covered the cost of the new system in less than two years. Further benefits include brighter, higher-quality light from the new LED fittings as well as greatly reduced maintenance costs.”

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