Cold Food Displays

Chilled ready-to-eat food is held at 5°C or below. Measure it at the warmest point in the cabinet, because the controller only reads the return air and that's hardly ever the warmest spot. Sit a probe thermometer on the top shelf near the glass for the first week and compare the two, and if they don't agree, go with the probe.

Load the cabinet with product that's already cold. A display is built to hold temperature, not to pull it down, and it hasn't got the compressor or the airflow to chill a warm tray while a door is opening every couple of minutes. One warm tray will lift the shelves around it for hours.

Fog on the inside of the glass is moisture and it isn't a fault. You'll see it in summer, when the shop door is propped open, and when food goes in still steaming. Cover any liquids, dry the trays off and keep the doors shut so the cabinet can recover.

Fog on the outside means the room is warmer and wetter than the glass, which is normal in a bakery near the ovens or a fish shop at wash-down. Heated glass sorts that out, but you have to order the cabinet with it because it can't be added later.

Before you call a technician, check the door is closing properly on its seal and that nothing is blocking the air return along the deck.

Start with the counter. Work out how many metres of frontage you want facing the customer, then make that length up out of segments, because a 1200 next to a 900 is a lot easier to move than one long case. Then pick your tiers by what's going in. Two tiers suit tall cakes, and three or four give you more product per metre for sandwiches, salads and smallgoods.

Then measure the way in. A 1500 or 1800 floor-standing case arrives in one crate, so the shop door, the lift and any corner in the corridor all decide whether it gets there at all. Countertop cabinets are much easier to get into an old shopfront.

A cake display fridge is made for looking into. You get tiered glass shelves, bright lighting and enough moisture in the air that icing and cream don't crust over after a day on show. The customer only sees the front, and staff load it through a door at the back.

A deli display fridge is made for serving from. The glass leans out over one deep deck at working height, and pans, blocks, salads and smallgoods sit on that deck while staff weigh and wrap from the open back.

Both are built in curved and square glass. The glass shape is a decision about how you want the shop to look, and it won't change how the cabinet performs.

Seafood displays are built around a drained deck. Fish is laid out on crushed ice, the ice melts all day, so the cabinet needs a drain and surfaces that won't corrode, and it has to hold temperature with the front open. The Bonvue AMS cabinets include a dual-access version, so you can serve from behind the case, or from either side if it's standing as an island.

Cooked rice goes hard and chalky if you drive it too cold or too dry, so sushi bar displays cool gently and still, with no fan blowing across the deck. Thermaster, Bonvue and Sayl build them as a topping case that runs along the bar in front of the chef.

Upright glass-door freezers come in one, two or three doors and do the same job for frozen product that a glass door fridge does for chilled, so retail packs, tubs and frozen meals all sell out of them. Thermaster builds multi-door supermarket models that will make up a full wall.

Chest freezers with glass lids give you more volume for your money, but they don't sell as well per metre, because the customer has to lean in over the lid.

Ice cream displays are a different job again, because scooping needs the product warmer than deep storage. They hold the pans on show at a temperature you can actually get a scoop through. Bonvue, Bromic, Thermaster and Anvil all build them, benchtop and floor-standing.

Open cases sell more, because there's nothing between the customer and the drink, so more people pick one up. That's why you see them in service stations, on grab-and-go walls and at supermarket front ends.

An open case holds temperature by pouring a curtain of cold air down the front, and the room can break that curtain, so an air-conditioning vent, a ceiling fan or a propped-open front door will lift the temperature on the deck. Glass doors cost less to run and they hold better in a hot room.

If you do go open, fit night blinds and pull them down after close, because that's where most of the running cost on this sort of cabinet goes.

Yes, you can. REO's prices are sharp, but a run of display cabinets is still one of the biggest items in a fit-out. Silverchef Rent-Try-Buy is the other way to pay for it, and you rent the cabinet, so your cash stays free for the joinery, the coffee machine and the first month of stock.

Rental payments are an operating expense, so they go through your running costs instead of tying money up in equipment, and your accountant can tell you how that lands for your venue. When trade settles down you buy the cabinet out, or move up to a longer one as the counter grows.

Boxing a cabinet into joinery with no air path is the common one. The condenser has nowhere to draw air from and nowhere to dump the heat, so the unit runs longer and still drifts warm. Some models are made to stand hard against the next one and older ones need a gap at the sides, so check which you've bought before the cabinetmaker cuts the opening.

The rest of it is loading. Product piled above the load line blocks the air return and the top tier goes warm, and warm food put in fresh drags the whole case up with it. Neither of those is a fault.

Refurbished display cabinets have scratches and dents, picked up in transit, in the shop they came out of, or in handling. Every product is inspected, tested and verified in working condition before it is relisted for sale, and the warranty terms are shown on each product page, based on that cabinet's condition, history and age.

Warm water and a soft cloth on the glass, then a dry microfibre over it. Keep solvent cleaners away from the rubber, because they harden the seals, the door stops sealing properly and you lose temperature slowly and expensively. Curved glass scratches easily, so no scourers and nothing with a blade.

The condenser matters more. Once dust blankets the fins the compressor runs longer for the same result, and on a hot afternoon the cabinet won't hold. Brush or vacuum it monthly in a busy shop.

Pull the deck trays out weekly and check the drain is running clear, because if it blocks you get water sitting under the food and the cabinet starts to smell well before anything actually fails.