Personal Perspective: How the Coldroom Trade Has Changed, and Where It's Heading

I've been in this trade for 30 years, and I started Absolute Coldroom in 2005. Long enough to see the industry change shape a couple of times. I think it's in the middle of changing again, so I wanted to put a few thoughts down.

When Everyone Called the Coldroom Company

Once upon a time, refrigeration companies came to coldroom installers like us for two things. The first was new rooms. The second was door repairs.

I was one of those coldroom door service engineers. Hinges, closers, handles, heater tapes, gaskets, the lot. If a coldroom door wasn't shutting properly or a handle was broken a refrigeration engineer would ring someone like me to come out and sort it. That was just how it worked. They looked after the refrigeration, we looked after the box.

The Internet Changed That

Then the internet came along, and with it the online coldroom parts store. Ours included.

Suddenly a refrigeration engineer could look up the part, order it, have it delivered next day and fit it himself. No need to call anyone out. Why would you, if you can do it yourself and keep the job?

That was the start of the decline of the coldroom repair man. Not completely. There's still plenty of door work that needs someone who knows what they're doing, and we still do it. But there was a definite shift towards doing it yourself.

I'll be honest, we helped make that happen. As far as I know, we were the first online coldroom parts store in the UK. We built it to make it easy for engineers to find the right part and fit it themselves. I don't regret that. It's what customers wanted.

It didn't take long for others to follow. Then another, and another. Some of them "borrowed" our product images along the way, and a few have "borrowed" our blog posts too. I'll take that as a compliment, mostly.

It Isn't Just Engineers

It's not only refrigeration engineers buying parts now. Plenty of end users, the butcher, the pub, the school kitchen, order a new handle or a set of hinges themselves.

The catch is that a coldroom handle isn't like a kitchen cupboard handle. There are dozens of makes and models, offsets, fixing centres and left or right hand versions, and a lot of old doors have lost their labels years ago. Getting the right part first time isn't always easy, and fitting it can be trickier still.

That's where 30 years of looking at coldroom doors comes in handy. Send us a few photos on WhatsApp and we'll help identify what you've got, and we're happy to talk you through fitting it. In a way the old door repair man hasn't gone, he just works over the phone a lot more now.

Now I Can See Another Shift

This time it's the rooms themselves.

More and more refrigeration companies are buying cheaper flat-pack coldrooms online and putting them up themselves. To be fair to them, they're relatively easy to install, and for some jobs that's all the customer needs.

But they aren't the quality we like to install. The panels, the finish, the doors, the detail where the walls, ceilings and floors meet. When you've spent 30 years looking at what goes wrong with coldrooms, you notice these things. A room that goes up quickly isn't always a room that lasts. Problems don't present themselves straight away, but they almost always show up eventually.

Our Answer: One Company, From the Ground Up

Rather than moan about it, we've changed what we offer. We now provide a complete coldroom installation service. One company, start to finish.

If the customer is having an outdoor room, we can:

• Do the groundworks
• Pour the concrete pad
• Build the coldroom
• Install the refrigeration
• Fit the roofing and shelving
• Install air conditioning indoors if it's needed

One point of contact, one team, and one company responsible for the whole job. No chasing a groundworker, a panel installer and a refrigeration engineer and trying to get them all on site in the right order. No arguments about whose fault it is when something doesn't line up.

Why It Matters

The trade has always moved with what customers want. Parts went online because engineers wanted to do it themselves. Rooms are going the same way because people want them cheaper and quicker.

We can't stop that and we're not trying to. But there's still a big difference between a room that's been bought in a box and one that's been properly built by people who've done it for decades. For customers who want it done right, once, we want to be the people they ring.

Same as it used to be, really. Just a lot more of the job.

Absolute Coldroom is a family business based in Otley, West Yorkshire, installing coldrooms and commercial refrigeration across the UK. If you're planning a new coldroom, indoor or outdoor, call us on 0333 335 5780 or get in touch to talk it through.