H&C News meets with suppliers regularly to keep up to date with the latest product and service innovations, aiming to get the inside track on what companies offer to the market and how it is delivered.
This week, we met Andrew Hudspith, Retail Director at ISD Solutions a supplier of chilled and frozen storage solutions at their offices and manufacturing centre in Gloucester, to gain a better understanding of their business. Andrew explained…
ISD Solutions was founded in 1946 and today is a leader in temperature controlled storage solutions offering design, manufacture, installation and maintenance services. This covers everything from the smallest walk-in cold store, in modular kit form, popular for busy kitchens and catering environments, through bespoke individually designed solutions, right up to large temperature-controlled warehouses for major supermarket brands and others industries. The latter might not be relevant to a small independent, but for high street restaurant chains centralised cold storage is becoming increasingly important with the drive for food quality and consistency across the brand.
Our focus here is the smaller modular end of the cold store market, more suited to the hospitality and catering sector and smaller grocery chains where temperature controlled food storage is crucial. Andrew Hudspith started with the company as factory manager in 1992 and introduced the manufacturing of modular cold rooms in 1993 using polyurethane composite panels, with a focus on the use of CFC free and green materials.
Today the company manufactures off the shelf and bespoke solutions for a wide range of customers and of course materials, insulation qualities and fittings have all advanced significantly. An active member of the International Association for Cold Storage Construction (IACSC) and BFFF (the UK’s frozen food trade association) ISD continues to develop its design, manufacturing and installation capabilities to deliver the best solutions to its customers.
Solutions are available either ‘off-the-peg’ from ISD Direct in a range of popular sizes and delivered ready for assembly by a competent fitter or as bespoke solutions, designed to meet specific client requirements, all with operating temperatures typically from -20 to +5 degrees. The focus is on high performance, easy clean and efficient solutions – that means reduced running costs compared to many on the market – with a variety of finishes and colours to suit the operating environment including food safe laminates and stainless steel.
Modular and off the peg cold rooms are supplied with floor, ceiling and wall panels, an integrated refrigeration unit, digital controls and lighting. For our off the peg solutions, a mix and match approach provides customers with complete flexibility over the choice of room size, compressor specification, shelving and installation preferences. Further customisation is possible with options for strip curtains, windows, sliding doors, floor options for walk-in or trolley access, shelving systems even remote condensing units.
Importantly ISD also offers a full service and maintenance capability, including preventative maintenance, essential for protecting temperature controlled investments, and where valuable food contents are involved. This one stop shop approach also makes dealing with ISD Solutions easier and for customers there is the advantage of just ‘one throat to choke’ when buying and maintaining your investment jokes Andy Hudspith.
How do hoteliers and restaurateurs begin the process of selecting the right cold storage solution?
Cold storage facilities of course are business critical, so quality, durability and reliability are important watch words. But how do you go about selecting what’s right for you? You might know exactly what you require and as ISD Solutions’ off the peg products come in three different sizes you can tailor the solution for your needs.
However, there’s also a team of sales managers backed by dedicated estimators with in depth experience to help you through the design and selection process to deliver a bespoke cold room solution to match your business requirements and the space available. This might also require a site visit and a series of drawings to come up with an optimal solution.
New manufacturing facilities and products
It’s a highly competitive sector and with technical advances in terms of construction materials and refrigeration we are constantly looking to improve our offerings. Recently we launched a new range of food safe foldaway shelving systems developed specifically in response to customer demand to complement our cold rooms.
We are also planning a continuous investment programme to improve our design and manufacturing capabilities even further. This benefits our customers in a number of ways. Firstly it means that we have complete quality control over the high performance insulated panels we use for building our cold rooms as well as the doors, windows and associated fixtures and fittings. Secondly, with in-house manufacturing expertise, we are able to bring genuine innovation to both products and contracting services, and lastly because we believe that, as a long established local employer, UK-based manufacture is important to the national economy.
H & C News comment
Truly innovative and well researched products which many businesses in our industry should find of interest. Our thanks to Andrew Hudspith for introducing the business and we wish them every success as they continue to thrive.
Contact our friendly team… Andy Hudspith, Retail Director
ISD Solutions, Unit A 125 Business Park, Llanthony Road, Gloucester, Gloucestershire GL2 5JQ
Telephone: 01452 520 649
Fax: 01452 301 910/01452 312 684
E-mail: sales@isd-solutions.co.uk
For more information about ISD Solutions click here
For more information about ISD Solutions Retail Division click here
For more information about ISD Modular Coldrooms click here