KENYA – East Africa’s leading Commercial Kitchen, Laundry and Cold Room solutions provider, Sheffield Africa has completed the installation of a 720sqm cold chain facility for Kapa Oil Refineries Limited for bulk storage of margarine.
According to the report by Business Daily, it is split into two 360sqm temperature-controlled cold-room with a multistage racking where products can be stored at four levels.
It has a RACK refrigeration system with inverter technology that reduces power consumption of the whole plant by between 20 percent and 25 percent, and fully automatic sectional doors with a remote-control system.
This, as indicated by Suresh Kanotra the Managing Director of the company, is their biggest project yet.
In a bid to provide innovative cold storage solutions, the firm uses Polyurethane Foam (PUF) panels in assembling the rooms’ insulation properties. This innovation helps in cutting energy costs for firms and farmers.
“We noticed a gap in cold storage that cuts across several industries in Kenya and in Africa. Since our vision is to create entire solutions for the hospitality, health, and agriculture sectors, we decided to venture into manufacturing and assembly of cold storage to ensure readily available and tailor-made solutions,” says Suresh Kanotra, the managing director.
Sheffield says it seeks to create energy-saving, hygienic, long-lasting, and cost-effective solutions with minimal environmental impact.
Their cold storage system includes solar-powered cold rooms, display cold-rooms, fruits and vegetable storage, fruit ripening chambers, potato storage, onion storage, meat cold storage, fish cold storage, and mortuary storage.
Its two cold room facilities — a solar-powered one and the other, a low-cost (room air conditioner powered), targets the agribusiness industry and it a first in the market in terms of new innovation.
“We noticed a gap in cold storage that cuts across several industries in Kenya and in Africa. Since our vision is to create entire solutions for the hospitality, health, and agriculture sectors, we decided to venture into manufacturing and assembly of cold storage to ensure readily available and tailor-made solutions.”
Suresh Kanotra – Managing Director
The standalone solar power, Mr Kanotra notes, “is one of the best solutions for operating small cold storage in rural areas where there is a certain limit of power load”.
These solar-powered cold rooms have unique features such as low maintenance, electric power or a digital generator (DG) backup, portable and easy to shift at any open countryside areas.
“Our cold rooms are well insulated, highly efficient, and precisely designed to cater to a wide temperature range of +25°C to -40°C,” adds Mr Kanotra.
Other Sheffield clients include Wondernut EPZ International, Sarit Centre Production and Banqueting, Nairobi Hospital, KFC, Artcaffe and Simbisa Kenya.
The company recently opened a new equipment showroom at their branch office in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa to bring their solutions and live product demonstrations closer to their current and potential clients in the region.
It has presence in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, and is the only company in its industry in Kenya, to be listed in Super brands Africa.
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