Loch Levens Larder

Loch Leven

Customer: Loch Levens Larder, Loch Leven

Solutions: Counters, multi-decks and frozen food

Features: Farm Shop Equipment

Savings: Low energy equipment

Project overview

Loch Leven’s Larder is a farm shop in a beautiful setting on the Loch Leven Heritage Trail, Kinross, in Scotland. The store has a host of award wins under its belt. It’s been recognised as the Best Place for Women to Work by Business Women Scotland and Independent Retailer of the Year by Perthshire Chamber of Commerce. The store has even run two Broccoli Festivals, and brought Parkrun to Loch Leven! Emma Niven, of Loch Leven’s Larder, said: “We are serious about food and I wanted that message to stand out, so we made a huge investment in building a whole new food hall. Undertaking a huge development on our business was a decision we didn’t take likely.” “We had outgrown our old deli and we knew this was one of our growth areas so we had a specific plan in mind on how it would look. We wanted to do something that would really stand out, and give customers a full view of the deli and butchers as they browsed,” says Emma. From the outset, Emma was impressed by Pastorfrigor: “From the beginning, they were fantastic. We never felt under pressure to make a decision that wasn’t ours. They listened to us and showed us other installations to give us ideas. “I firmly believe when you have a vision, you go for it. And they really did help us bring it to light,” she says.

What did Pastorfrigor install?

Pastorfrigor supplied two Kalifornia Q Open chillers, a Torino BT 3 Door, a Kalifornia Ecovision wine chiller with hinged doors and four President Deli serve over counters. Vertex Scotland carried out the installation. Work took place from July to October 2018, and saw the deli counter extend from 2.5m to 12m long. Simon Robinson, “Pastorfrigor GB partnered with Vertex Scotland to install all the refrigeration and AC into this amazing space. President counters, Kalifornia multidecks and Torino full glass door freezers really helped give it a quality feel.”

What were the results?

“We opened the doors to the new extension on 19 October. Customers have been piling in since and love it!” says Emma. “The feedback has been incredible, sales are up and every area has grown from the knock on effect of the extension.”

 The whole process took four months and the fit, says Emma, is “perfect”.

 “Getting the deli right was so important to us. It’s the centre point of our new extension – everything was built around it. We also wanted to support more suppliers and local businesses and the new extension has allowed us to stock more local cheeses and meats.”

 “Our deli is now stocked with delicious food, wonderful scents and enticing flavours,” says Emma. “The new space also allowed us to expand our range of speciality cheeses, fine wines, craft ales, fresh local produce, confectionery and more. Our new bakery can now produce a bigger range of quality baked goods than every before, using the best local produce available.”

 “We’ve also been able to welcome our long-time supplier butchers Hunter’s of Kinross into the food hall so customers can purchase their quality meats to take home.”

“Everyone’s hard work and commitment has been amazing. Refrigeration is very much a man’s world, but at no time did they make me feel as if I couldn’t be part of the process and take the lead. They were really professional and understood what I wanted to do,” she says.

 The team at Vertex Scotland were also very professional and worked well with Pastorfrigor, she adds. “They were able to bring our vision into reality and design us bespoke refrigeration to suit our plan.”

“2018 was a great year for us  – the new Greenhouse Café, artisan bakery, food hall and tasting room all opened, and Hunters of Kinross butchers joined us.

“I would definitely recommend Pastorfrigor for the work and service they provided – as well as it being quality, they were very competitive,” she adds.

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