Gillett's Go Green

Over the last couple of weeks Gilletts Callington ltd have invested over £35,000 on new equipment at two stores as part of a trial to try and reduce its carbon footprint by reducing the amount of energy the store's consume chilling its fresh product range.

Mark Gillett commented "we are always looking to reduce costs within the company and with electric prices constantly on the up... we decided it was time to look at other options available to us for chilling fresh foods"

He continued "when we decided we wanted to renew the refrigeration at both our Par and Liskeard stores, we decided to take a look at closed front cabinets as a pose to the standard open fronted units we usually install and have used for years. We liked what we saw at the convenience retail show back in January but up till now have not moved forward with it due to the increased cost of the cabinets... however with costs still increasing for electric we felt now was the time and in the long term it would be well worth the extra investment now, as there are significant reductions in running costs of up to 40%"

The company know its early days in the trial, but feedback from customers at the stores has been nothing but positive, and they really seem to like the fact that the company are taking steps to reduce its carbon footprint for the long term".

Mark also commented " we will monitor the sales at the 2 stores on the trial as we cannot allow sales to suffer because products are behind glass.... early results are very promising though with sales up on average 8% across the whole chilled category... we have however seen some huge rises in fresh meat up 60% and fruit and veg up a similar amount"