MaintScope · Butcher & deli
Butcher, deli & grocer cool room service
You already keep temperature records. The question is whether the numbers in them are true. A cool room a degree and a half above spec passes an untrained glance and quietly costs you shelf life, stock and compliance at the same time.
And if it's still running
Know what it's going to cost you — before it costs you
A licenced tech goes through every bit of air conditioning, ventilation and refrigeration you've got, and writes down what condition it's in, what needs doing and when, and what it's realistically going to cost you over the next year and the next five. Plain English, one PDF.
When this equipment stops, stock starts dying the same day.
Get a health checkWorked example · Butcher & deli · East Gosford
What the report actually says
What you’ve got
| Equipment | Age | Condition | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walk-in cool room | ~11 yrs | Action | Holding 4.5°C, should be 2–3°C |
| Serve-over display cabinet | ~7 yrs | Watch | Front glass sweating, curtain not sealing |
| Freezer room | ~11 yrs | Watch | Heavy ice build on evaporator |
| Underbench prep fridges x2 | ~6 yrs | Serviceable |
Needs attention now
- The cool room is 1.5°C too warm. Your temperature records say you’re compliant. A calibrated gauge says otherwise. That gap is a food safety problem and a shelf-life problem at the same time.
- Ice on the freezer evaporator. Defrost cycle isn’t clearing. That’s a cheap fix now and a compressor later.
- Display curtain not sealing overnight. You’re refrigerating the shop.
Your service year
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Daily | Temperature records (you already do this) |
| Quarterly | Calibration check against a reference thermometer |
| April | Full service — cool room, freezer, display, defrost cycles |
| Sept | Pre-summer service |
What it costs — next 12 months
| Item | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Cool room service, 2 visits | $840 | $1,280 |
| Freezer room service | $480 | $780 |
| Serve-over display | $280 | $560 |
| Underbench x2 | $300 | $560 |
| Calibration + records | $180 | $360 |
| Total | $2,080 | $3,540 |
Coming in five years
- Cool room compressor — $2,800–5,500
- Freezer compressor — $3,200–6,000
- Display cabinet — $6,000–14,000
Quietly costing you money
Shelf life is temperature. Every degree above spec shortens how long product holds. If you’re marking down or binning at the end of the week, some of that is your cool room, not your ordering. And an iced-up evaporator can add 20–30% to that freezer’s running cost.
What I’d do first
- Calibrate everything against a reference — know what your records actually mean
- Sort the freezer defrost cycle
- Display curtain, used every night
How it works
$150 to come out. Everything else depends on what's there.
- I come out — $150.I go through the lot: what you've got, how old it is, what condition it's in. Takes an hour or two depending on how much is in the place.
- You get it in writing within 48 hours.One PDF. What's there, what needs doing and when, what it should cost you over the year, and what's coming further out.
- Anything that needs fixing, I quote on what I find.I can't price a service off a website — it depends on the unit, the access and what turns up when it's open. You'll get a real number, not a guess.
- If you'd rather not think about it again, I'll handle it.Scheduled servicing across the year, timed around your trade. No lock-in — plenty of people take the report and go it alone, and that's genuinely fine.