With a new strategic vision taking shape and the Annual Fall Conference nearing, wholesaler and supplier members of the Heating, Airconditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) gathered in a Chicago suburb in early June for the annual Mid-Year Business Meeting.

Contractors and wholesalers will do well to keep at least one ear and eye tuned into developments in Europe when it comes to the future of HFCs. While the North America market talks about a possible phase-down in production of HFCs sometime in the distant future, the activities in Europe are more stepped up.

During the summer there was a flurry of press releases from an organization called BeyondHFCs. I pulled a number of them together into a story that appears in this issue. As I noted in the beginning of the story, this is a European-based organization that advocates the use of natural refrigerants rather than HFCs.

I just got back from the Food Marketing Institute Energy Conference, this year in Minneapolis. This is an annual event that I’ve been attending most years for more than 20 years.

Want to know a good way to get free publicity for your HVACR business? Just have someone on staff that was, say, “an All-Conference receiver” the year his high school football team was, say, co-conference champion.

Every time major international environmental conferences take place, I have a tendency to wait with baited breath to see how the outcome could negatively affect the way HVACR business is done and the associated cost. Two fairly recent examples are the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen Accord.

Contractors and service techs who work on reach-in coolers and freezers in stores should be aware that there is talk in that sector about reinventing the dairy department. In fact, a third-party organization has been formed to encourage stores owners to invest in such an overhaul and show them how to do it.

Just as the Food Marketing Institute show in Las Vegas showcased a number of new innovations in supermarket technology, many of those trends are finding their way into supermarkets. They range from lighting to refrigerants to entire mechanical systems. Here is a look at three recent projects.

“The design of refrigeration systems in supermarkets is going through a state of flux not seen since the conception of man-made refrigeration some 130 years ago.” That statement by piping manufacturer Georg Fischer, an exhibitor at FMI 2010, was reinforced throughout the Mandalay Bay Convention Center show floor.

If the HVACR industry is going to embrace refrigerants beyond fluorine gases, in many cases it is going to have to do so with new compressor technology. That formed the basis of a presentation of papers under the general title “Alternative Refrigerant Compressors” at the 20th International Compressor Conference.