Nisa retailers invest in energy-saving measures

Nisa retailers have taken measures to help combat rising energy costs by investing in energy efficiency and changing business practices.  

Nisa recently shared guidance to help customers improve their energy efficiency as the price of energy continues to rise. Installation of energy-efficient equipment, such as LED lighting and retrofitting doors on chillers, have been the main actions taken by retailers to help lower costs.  

Nisa customers shared their advice on how to decrease their energy consumption as well as the actions they have taken to save on energy bills.   

Fraser Johnston of Nisa Murthly and Nisa Bankfoot in Perth worked with Nisa’s store development team to make energy saving changes to his store.   

Nisa Murthly have replaced their old chillers with two new Evolution chillers, with doors, from Pastorfrigor. They have also retrospectively installed doors on their existing chillers and Clearvision Cooling LED lighting in the chiller doors.  

At the Nisa Bankfoot store, the retailer has also fitted the Clearvision Cooling doors, due to the impending increase in the electricity contract. Along with other changes made, initial indications in the Nisa Bankfoot store show a 25% reduction in the amount of units being used. 

“The reason we never updated our original fridges is that I wasn’t a fan of having a barrier between the customer and the product. There is a lot of debate among retailers on whether doors reduce trade but on looking at our sales it has not had any detrimental impact,” added Fraser.

“Now is a good time for retailers to plan as much as they can. Our electricity contract is expiring in a few months’ time which is why we have made investments into energy efficiency. We don’t know what it will be like once that contract runs out.”  

Kaual Patel of Torridon Convenience in London took a different approach to reducing consumption through a significant store development. 

“I think the most efficient change we made is our ‘beer cave’. Instead of using fridges for our alcohol, we made an entire section of the shop cold with air conditioning. It is a lot more cost effective to do it this way. 

“We also installed new fridges. Their doors are almost triple the thickness of our old ones and they have made a big difference. The main thing we noticed with the new suppressors is it only turns on when the fridge needs to be brought back to temperature, whereas our old ones would be on all the time.”  

Zubair Aslam of Nisa Local in Perth successfully revamped his store in November 2022, installing new chillers and LED lighting resulting in noticeable reductions in his energy bills. 

“Overall, since installing the new chillers we have saved £500. We really didn’t think we would see such a drastic change in our bills. I would say to other retailers it is worth investing in energy-saving measures.”  

Peter Batt, Managing Director of Nisa, said: “The squeeze on global gas prices has meant that the price small businesses pay for energy has increased drastically and will likely continue to rise [without further government support].

“We want to help our independent retailers mitigate the impact of rising energy bills and encourage their adoption of energy saving measures.

“As some of our retailers have shown, there are a number of energy saving actions retailers can take, both front and back of house, that will help save on costs and improve their store sustainability by reducing its energy demand and environmental impact.”