Oil rig chefs the reason behind 'Environmental Pioneer of the Year 2013'

Ian Wood, MD of Lowestoft-based Adande Refrigeration has won Environmental Pioneer of the Year in the 2013 Cooling Industry Awards, the refrigeration industry's most-respected Awards event. This is a very rare accolade for someone from the catering industry...we can't think of anyone else from foodservice who has won this award...so what is so special about Ian Wood? He is not one to follow the crowd (note the glaring red bow tie)! A pioneer in the true sense of the word, he has helped to completely re-invent commercial refrigeration and is doing his best to achieve the same in retail. What started his journey to refrigeration stardom? Chefs on oil rigs...that's who! Ian’s story starts in the 90’s when he was asked to solve a major refrigeration problem for  oil rig kitchens. The problem was rig kitchens, like many restaurant and hotels, were just too hot for conventional upright or counter technology. The chefs complained their conventional units were failing to hold temperature, causing food to spoil and be thrown away. That's bad enough in a normal kitchen, but infuriating for rig chefs when it has been taken there by helicopter at a cost of thousands of pounds. Ian was then providing HVAC services to rigs and – working with fellow engineer George Young – he came up with an entirely new approach to catering refrigeration because that was the only system he could see would work! Such was their belief in the new system – the Adande insulated drawer – that the pair gave up HVAC work to found Adande. The genius of the new system is simple. In conventional fridges or freezers, you open the door, the cold air falls out and warm, moist air is sucked in, raising internal temperatures and in freezers particularly, causing that well known 'snowstorm' effect. With the Adande insulated drawer, the cold 'sits' and does not move, solving the issue of failing to hold consistent temperature and providing the awesome benefit of temperature stability. Chefs in the UK and worldwide are increasingly coming to grips with how this can improve their cooking... and they rave about Adande. It also improves their budgeting because food lasts so much longer; even fish (which is stored without the need for ice in an Adande). Ian won Environmental Pioneer because he is helping change an entire industry. And not only in the UK – the Adande insulated drawer is now taking worldwide its massive energy savings compared to conventional units. 'Massive' means 60% energy savings, which is great news for whoever pays the energy bill. But operators like McDonalds and KFC as well as Michelin-starred chefs, educators, contract caterers, plus restaurants, hotels and catering colleges, are also finding, more importantly, that the Adande insulated refrigerated drawer is so much better at preserving food. Our research (see Griffiths report on the website: www.adande.com ) shows Adande could save 25% of fresh food being thrown away; that is food that has had to be grown, picked, packed, stored, shipped and stored again before delivery. Adande estimates there are 5,000 units installed worldwide – and that figure is doubling every five years! Multiply that number by 25% of the fridge contents and you will see that Adande is saving huge volumes of wasted food and consequently, huge amounts of road miles, fertilizers and energy across the growth and delivery chain. As one of Ian’s contemporaries said of Ian: “In true Mark Twain spirit, ‘He didn't know it was impossible so he did it anyway’.”     Under the cookline at Jamie's Kingston.                     In the kitchen at The Montagu Arms.                   Next to the Combis at Galvin's La Chappelle.                                   Continuing To Make Our Mark at Home and Across the World