Woosters is a Suffolk bakery specialising in traditional and artisan bread, pastries, and cakes. The bakery has a family tradition of innovation and has continued to grow in both quality and reputation, culminating in the ‘Best Newcomer’ award at the 2017 EADT Suffolk Food & Drink Awards.
Woosters operates a small bakery in Bardwell, Suffolk, supplying a number of independent cafes and stores, as well as their shop in Bury St Edmunds. In recent years, rising temperatures and increased demand have led to overheating issues in the bakery, primarily caused by the ovens, resulting in uncomfortable conditions for the staff.
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Client
- Location Bardwell, Suffolk
The Solution
EcoCooling, being local to Woosters, was contacted to explore cooling options for their facility. Since the building already had extraction canopies installed, a straightforward solution was the installation of a wall-mounted EcoCooler. This unit provided fresh, chilled, and filtered air to replace the air being extracted through the canopies.
By ensuring adequate filtered replacement air, they discovered that the extraction canopies performed more effectively and the hygiene standards in the area improved, as all the air entering the bakery was now fully filtered.
An additional significant advantage of EcoCooling’s evaporative cooling in bakeries is that the cool air doesn’t dry out the products. In contrast, air-conditioned air can significantly reduce the relative humidity in the area, leading to dry air, which is detrimental to the product quality.
EcoCooling’s approved installers supplied and installed the EcoCooling unit, which provides over 35KW of cooling at a running cost of only 1.2KW of power. This allows for hourly cooling at the same cost as boiling a kettle without the use of any refrigeration. The installation was carried out while the bakery remained operational, with no downtime.
“Using the EcoCooling system has made an enormous difference to the bakery during the summer months. Both the team and products were suffering as we couldn’t take the heat out of the building. We used air conditioning in a previous unit and found that the resting doughs would dry out terribly. This has reduced dramatically with EcoCooling’s system. British summers aren’t going to get any cooler either so their installation has also helped to future-proof the bakery in a warming world. The costs are also dramatically better than the old air con system mentioned before – peace of mind when costs are increasing constantly.”
Will Wooster
Director, Wooster’s Bakery
