To prove the outstanding quality of its refrigerated truck body solutions, Eurocold sent its largest vehicle to Queensland to undergo unique specification testing
In the four years since Eurocold first emerged as the distributor of ISOKIT Isothermal truck bodies out of Northern Italy into Australia, sustainability has been at the core of its operations.
At the time, ISOKIT wanted a company that had national coverage to take its European product to Australia. With the product having been tested previously in Australia, Eurocold quickly became a force in the refrigerated transport of food products sector.
After developing its brand and emerging as a leading option in refrigerated transport solutions and leasing options, Eurocold chief commercial officer Kanani Draper says the company is maintaining its passion for sustainability.
“In particular, we’re passionate about eliminating food waste in the cold transport chain,” Draper told ATN.
“A key way we’ve lived this mission is with high-quality bodies from our partner ISOKIT, assembled to the highest standards and fitted with class-leading Carrier fridges.”
Draper says Eurocold’s refrigerated transport solution also focuses on sustainability by offering lower energy use and emissions when compared to a lower performing refrigerated body.
To prove its capabilities as a sustainable refrigerated transport solutions brand, Eurocold put its bodies to the test with Supercool.
Supercool are leaders in refrigeration and HVAC systems, particularly when it comes to the testing of products in this sphere. Recently, Eurocold took its solutions to Supercool’s testing and certification centre in Ormeau, Queensland, where a series of specific and standardised tests were run on Eurocold’s leading models.
At Supercool’s purpose-built SuperTest testing and validation centre, the company accurately and scientifically validates the performance and efficiency of mobile and stationary HVAC/R systems and components through a series of real-world simulations. These can help companies achieve cost efficiencies, improve operational economies, help meet regulatory and compliance standards and minimise emissions and food waste – a key pillar of Eurocold’s operations.
Part of this offer is testing vehicles for the Australian Standard AS4982, which considers the fundamental airtightness and insulation of the whole truck body and the performance of the refrigerator in the body.
At Australasia’s only purpose-built testing facility for mobile and stationary HVAC/R, Eurocold last year selected the largest vehicle in its fleet, a Fuso Shogun fitted with a 14 Pallet ISOKIT body and Carrier Supra 1250, to be tested to the ‘C’ class standard.
The ‘C’ class standard means bodies to support freezer specifications of -18 degrees Celsius, even when the external temperature is at 38 degrees Celsius.
In great news for Eurocold, the vehicle passed the ‘C’ class freezer specification standard, making it the only freezer grade truck body independently tested to the Australian Standard AS4982.
“As this is the largest of our bodies and therefore there’s more surface area to lose heat through, we see this test as setting the standard for all of our body sizes because they use the same fittings, materials and assembly techniques,” Eurocold’s electric truck brand Revora general manager Nathan Gore-Brown told ATN.
What allowed Eurocold’s largest refrigerated truck body in its fleet to pass such a high standard of certification testing? Gore-Brown says a key factor in the quality of Eurocold’s body system is the overall thermal efficiency.
In trucks, this efficiency is measured by the ‘K value’, which is the amount of energy being lost over a square metre of surface of insulating material. The lower the ‘K value’ is, the better a refrigerated truck body’s insulation is.
Much like Eurocold’s other measures, its bodies once again came up trumps, signifying the quality of the brand’s refrigerated truck offerings.
“Our ISOKIT insulated body panels alone offer a K value of 0.39,” Gore-Brown says.
“The AS4682 test established that when constructed and with rear and side doors, the K value is just 0.7, resulting in a great platform for food to be transported in.”
“This is a fundamental part of our food waste elimination mission, and I’m glad we’ve been able to display the quality of our fleet in striving for this goal,” Draper says.