Over 30 international buyers visited the Novum facility last week to view the game changing LEAP technology and celebrate Novum’s 60 years of business in the context of the Store of the Future event, co-hosted by Novum Overseas and Enterprise Ireland.

Major international retailers from Europe and North America were in attendance including Iceland, Biedronka, the largest supermarket chain in Poland, La Sirena, Spain’s chain of frozen speciality shops and Southeastern, the parent company of BI-LO, Fresco y Más, Harveys Supermarket and Winn-Dixie grocery stores in the US as well as the Canadian North West Company. International retailers travelled from as far west as Winnipeg Canada and as far east as Warsaw, Poland to experience for themselves the second phase of this hugely disruptive LEAP technology, which was developed and subsequently trademarked by Novum.

What is LEAP technology?

Novum’s CTO Eoin Lennon explained that LEAP technology is the most energy and cost-efficient technology on the global market. It was developed as a solution for Novum’s largest customer, who had issues around defrost thaw cycles and the cost incurred of having to de-merchandise freezers often on a monthly basis.

From a technical viewpoint, LEAP technology has the evaporator externally located from the food chamber. The air is then ducted and distributed evenly throughout the food chamber. This is commonly known as a forced air system where the defrost cycle happens externally to the food chamber.

This brings a myriad of benefits which include:

Energy Efficiency & Sustainability

The energy required during the defrost cycle is significantly lower than traditional defrost systems and virtually no additional energy is required post-defrost. Hence LEAP products are the most energy efficient freezers of their type on the global market.

All our units use R290 propane gas which is a natural refrigerant and environmentally friendly when used as a refrigerant.

Food Integrity

In traditional defrost systems, during the defrost process, food can be heated to between 5° C and 8°C during the defrost process.

LEAP technology ensures that there is very little variation in product temperature during the automatic defrost cycle, ensuring continuity of food quality and longer shelf life

Impact on Food Appearance, Merchandising and Sales

LEAP technology is also commonly referred to as frost free technology which is great news for merchandisers and sales teams alike.

Why is this so?

Frost free technology ensure optimum visibility of food products by removing frost build-up on frozen food packaging and ensuring the glass on the freezer cabinet is crystal clear 24/7. This is fantastic from a merchandising perspective, which typically leads to higher sales.

Removable Cassette Cartridge-Ease of maintenance

For maintenance and upgrade LEAP technology freezers have a removable cassette cartridge. This ensures there is no downtime on the supermarket floor in the unlikely event of a service issue. The cassette is very easily removed and replaced, thus removing the need for a maintenance technician to carry out maintenance and upgrades on this unit.

Significant Cost savings

The products which have incorporated LEAP technology to date are the Next Generation Line Range, Grand Cayman range and the Panama Green upright range.

The Grand Cayman cabinet’s energy usage, when compared to the next best in class competitor translates into 37% lower energy bills. The recently launched Panama Green upright boats half the energy usage of our biggest competitors with the same type product. The Next Generation Line range boasts energy usage of a mere 2.5 kWh/24h, the lowest energy usage for a product of its type on the global market.

Simplicity

The LEAP range of freezers are plug in freezers and are very simple to install, just plug in the freezer and it is ready to go as the settings are tuned in the factory.

Maintenance and service is also simple. Simply slide the cassette from the outside of the freezer and replace with a new one if required. The whole process takes on average 5 to 8 minutes.

Simple to move- As it is a plug-in freezer you can move a LEAP technology freezer to any position in your store. All you require is a power outlet!

Mr Lennon concluded his presentation by saying that the technology of the future for the store of the future and the customer of the future is available now, here in Novum.