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‘Turning off our blast freezer until summer’: how UK firms are cutting energy costs

‘Turning off our blast freezer until summer’: how UK firms are cutting energy costs

From an ice cream factory weighing up closing for three weeks over Christmas to a bistro now only open for bookings

David Equi can’t seem to catch a break. He opened a gleaming new factory in Glasgow for his eponymous luxury ice cream business on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic and has now missed out on the cutoff for government energy support by a single day.

Faced with a sharp rise in energy costs, he plans to shut down his blast freezer – a container that rapidly cools 40 pallets of ice cream – this winter. “We’re turning that off and using our existing freezers just to save money, and will switch it back on in the summer. We’re just looking at the tiniest wee things where we can save.”

Equi is also considering closing the factory entirely for up to three weeks over Christmas to save on bills, rather than operating on a skeleton staff as usual at the business, which supplies customers from Aldi to the Gleneagles hotel.

Many businesses will have invested in long-term sustainability measures to become more energy efficient but now, faced with rising prices, firms of all sizes across the country are examining every available measure to cut their bills.

David Equi of Equi’s Ice Cream
David Equi runs an ice-cream business but missed out on the cutoff for government energy support by a day. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

David Equi says: ‘We’re just looking at the tiniest wee things where we can save.’ Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

The electrical retailer Currys plans to turn down the brightness of its TVs; Vivendi, the owner of the Havas advertising agency, is turning down the temperature in its offices by 1C; and 300,000 LED lights will illuminate Oxford Street this Christmas – cheaper and more efficient than standard lightbulbs.

The incentive is clear: the restaurant and pub group Mitchells & Butlers said at the end of last month that its energy bill had almost doubled to £150m on pre-pandemic costs. Alston Wholefoods, a village shop in Cumbria, has switched off its freezer and is instead using laminated pictures of products for customers to order, saving an estimated £3,000 on its annual bill.

Some small businesses fear they will be asked by the government to shut down this winter to conserve energy supplies. Others say the sudden increase in costs has left them fighting for survival.

Article from The Guardian, read the full story here.

Official UK Distributors for Simon Frères Butter Processing Machinery

Official UK Distributors for Simon Frères Butter Processing Machinery

We are pleased to announce that Machinery World have been appointed official UK distributors of Simon Frères butter processing machinery.

Simon Freres authorised distributorSIMON Frères is an expert in Butter Process technology (cream treatment, churning, continuous blending, reworking, bulk packaging, distribution and melting) with solutions that are reliable, innovative and competitive.

Located in Cherbourg, in Normandy, France, SIMON FRERES was founded in 1856 and is the leading manufacturer of modern high-performance machines for dairy and butter industries. SIMON Freres is well known for:

  • A leading position in the field of butter equipment.
  • Expertise in continuous processes.
  • Partnering with customers with their industrial development.
  • Designing machines adapted to individual requirements.
  • A long tradition of exporting to over 50 countries.
  • Our professionalism and commitment to quality.

Since the manufacture of the first industrial continuous butter churn in 1955, SIMON Frères have devoted their efforts to further developing their machines and now offer the broadest range of equipment for making, reworking and packaging butter. Today their know-how is also applied to by-products such as low-fat products and special dairy spreads.

See link to all the new machines here

Simon Freres Butter Processing

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Scottish ice cream brand Porrelli scoops fresh Asda listing

Scottish ice cream brand Porrelli scoops fresh Asda listing

ROKK customer Porelli is celebrating after scooping an exclusive deal with Asda to stock two new ice cream flavours.

Produced on the ROKK RFE 1200 Twin Barrel Continuous Freezer, Porrelli’s new Bubblegum Swirl and Hazelnut Chocolate flavours will be available in 51 stores in Scotland.

This new deal is the Paisley based ice-cream factory’s first supermarket listing for the flavours, following a recent investment of £35,000 in state-of-the-art technology allowing new innovative flavours to be invented.

The new flavours are available in a 500ml size, retailing at £2.50 a tub and are in addition to the Vanilla and Scottish Tablet dairy ice cream tubs which are already available in Asda stores.

The family-run company have been working with Asda for more than 20 years and previously participated in Asda’s Supplier Development Academy, helping to boost the business from direct delivery to local Asda stores in Glasgow to a national Scottish distribution through depot.

Enzo Durante, managing director at Porrelli said:

We are thrilled to secure our first national supermarket listing for the Bubblegum Swirl and Hazelnut Chocolate flavours.

Over the past few years we’ve seen real innovation of ice cream flavours mimicking confectionary, thanks to a revival of the modern-day ice cream parlour.

Thanks to this consumer demand, we are always developing new flavour combinations and sauces, so it’s good to see this popularity now finding its way into retail pots in the supermarkets.

 Regional buying manager at Asda, Heather Turnbull, said:

Porrelli Ice Cream has been available at Asda for 20 years now and has been a huge success in stores across the country, so we know our customers are going to enjoy the two new flavours that have launched.

Over the years we have stocked a number of Porrelli Ice Cream products allowing customers to enjoy luxury ice cream packed full of home-grown Scottish taste, talent upporting local Scottish suppliers is an integral part of what we strive to do at Asda and we’re delighted to continue to support Porrelli Ice Cream range across our stores.

Porrelli has been making ice cream for more than 90 years for the catering and retail industry and stocks more than 100 flavours.

The company is well-known for its unusual flavours including Tablet, Iron Brew, Turkish Delight and Italian Mascarpone & Amarena Cherry.

Story courtesy of Scottish National

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Vanilla ice cream at the ‘meeting of the century’

Vanilla ice cream at the ‘meeting of the century’

After handshakes, smiles and a thumbs-up, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un wrapped up their half-day summit in Singapore with a working lunch. Here’s what was on the menu:

Starters

  • Traditional prawn cocktail served with avocado salad
  • Green mango kerabu with honey lime dressing and fresh octopus
  • “Oiseon” Korean stuffed cucumber

Main course

  • Beef short rib confit, served with potato dauphinois and steamed broccolini, red wine sauce on the side
  • Combination of sweet and sour crispy pork and Yangzhou fried rice with homemade XO chilli sauce
  • “Daegu jorim” soy braised cod fish with radish, Asian vegetables

Desserts

  • Dark chocolate tartlet ganache
  • Haagendazs vanilla ice cream with cherry coulis
  • Tropezienne

Some highlights of the menu included mango kerabu, a fresh mouth-watering salad dish popular among Malaysians, Yangzhou fried rice, which originates from southern China, and Korean dishes including the“Oiseon” stuffed cucumber and “Daegu Jorim” cod. The menu is kind of out of Trump’s comfort zone till it gets to dessert—he’s known as a huge fan of vanilla ice cream, and eats two scoops of it every day.

Despite outsiders not knowing a lot about his food habits, Kim Jong Un has been described as a foodie who loves luxury foreign foods—especially cheese, which did not feature on the menu. Today’s working lunch seems lighter on the symbolism than the menu at the inter-Korean summit in April, where South Korea served Kim rösti, a Swiss potato fritter dish he enjoyed in his boarding school days in Switzerland, and a cheery mango mousse cake symbolizing Korean unity that managed to anger Japan.

One of the most talked about dishes at the Trump-Kim summit, however, was not actually served at the working lunch. The thousands of reporters in Singapore covering the summit have been analysing the kimchi ice cream offered to them at the media center in quite some detail.

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