Commercial Refrigeration — Brisbane & Moreton Bay

Commercial refrigeration servicing & maintenance

Scheduled servicing is the cheapest refrigeration work you will ever pay for. Most of the emergency breakdowns we attend were preventable, and the ones that were not are usually far cheaper to fix when the system was in good order beforehand.

Who we help

Different businesses break refrigeration in different ways, and knowing the industry means we turn up with the right parts.

• Cafés and restaurants — prep fridges, under-bench units, display cabinets and cool rooms
• Pubs, clubs and bottle shops — keg rooms, glycol and beer line cooling, bottle coolers, ice machines
• Butchers and smallgoods — display cabinets, chillers and freezer rooms, where temperature accuracy is not negotiable
• Bakeries and patisseries — cake displays, retarder-provers, blast chillers
• Supermarkets and convenience stores — multideck displays, cool rooms, freezer cabinets
• Seafood retailers — ice displays and high-humidity cabinets
• Aged care and childcare — kitchen refrigeration and milk storage, where compliance records matter
• Medical practices and pharmacies — vaccine and medication fridges, where a failure costs more than stock
• Florists — flower coolers, which need very different humidity control to food
• Cold storage and warehousing — larger plant, blast freezing and bulk storage

Food safety compliance — what the law actually requires

This is the part most refrigeration companies do not talk about, and it is the part that costs businesses the most.

What temperature does commercial refrigeration have to hold in Australia?

Under the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, potentially hazardous food must be kept at 5°C or colder, or 60°C or hotter. Frozen food must be kept frozen hard — in practice −18°C or colder. Anything held between 5°C and 60°C is in the temperature danger zone.

For food that has been in that zone, Food Standards Australia New Zealand recommends the two-hour/four-hour rule. Under two hours it can go back in the fridge. Between two and four hours it can still be used or sold, but it cannot go back in the fridge. Over four hours it must be thrown out. The time is cumulative — you add up every period the food has been out of refrigeration, including preparation, transport and display. The rule is FSANZ guidance rather than a Code requirement; the 5°C and 60°C limits themselves are mandatory under Standard 3.2.2.

What a council inspector will ask for

Queensland local government environmental health officers inspect food businesses and can issue improvement notices, fines and closure orders. What they typically want to see:

• Temperature records showing cold storage is holding correctly
• A calibrated, accessible thermometer
• Evidence that equipment is maintained
• A documented process for what happens when something fails

Every service we carry out comes with a written report showing what was checked and what the equipment was holding. Keep those with your temperature logs and most of that conversation looks after itself.

Refrigerant changes — what they mean for your system

Australia is phasing down high global-warming-potential HFC refrigerants. If your system runs R404A — and a great many commercial systems installed before roughly 2020 do — this affects you.

In practice: R404A is getting scarcer and more expensive. It is not illegal to keep running an existing R404A system and nothing is being confiscated. But topping one up after a leak costs more every year, and at some point the economics tip toward replacing or retrofitting.

The options at that point are generally a retrofit to a lower-GWP blend such as R448A or R449A, or replacement with a system running R290 propane or R744 CO₂. Which suits depends on the equipment, its age and how long you plan to keep it.

Only an ARCtick licensed technician can legally handle refrigerant in Australia. Ours are — refrigerant handling licence L116705, an RAC01 Full Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Licence. If someone offers to regas your system without a licence, that is illegal, and a fair indication of what the rest of the work will be like.

Brands we supply and service

We install and service all major commercial refrigeration brands sold in Australia. If it keeps things cold, we can work on it.

For ice machines we regularly work with Scotsman, Manitowoc, Hoshizaki, Ice-O-Matic and Brema.

What it costs

Commercial refrigeration pricing depends on the equipment and the site — a single display fridge install is a very different job to a walk-in cool room or a full fit-out. We quote every job individually, and you approve the cost before we start.

Commercial refrigeration across Brisbane & Moreton Bay

We handle commercial refrigeration Brisbane wide. We are based in Deception Bay and cover the whole Moreton Bay region and greater Brisbane — North Lakes, Redcliffe, Caboolture, Burpengary, Narangba, Morayfield, Kallangur, Beachmere, Bribie Island and the Brisbane northside, along with commercial precincts like the Brisbane CBD, Fortitude Valley, Newstead and South Brisbane.

If you are just outside these areas, give us a call — chances are we still get out your way. See all the areas we service.