Project summary
Di Meos Delaval Ices is a café, pizzeria and ice cream parlour based in Whitley Bay. They received an energy audit and decarbonisation plan to help identify potential energy saving improvements. They successfully applied for a BEST grant towards new catering equipment and a Solar PV system.
We spoke to their Director, Luciano Di Meo about the improvements they have seen for the business because of this support.
Speaking about the challenges they were facing Luciano said: “We had some inefficient equipment we were looking to upgrade in the kitchen because it was old, specifically we needed a new pizza oven.
We looked into several types of ovens and visited industry shows in Italy where a lot of the manufacturers told us they were starting to focus on electric ovens. They told us the era of wood burning pizza ovens was coming to an end and the future was in electric ovens.
Our own gas equipment was inefficient. It was using 25 kwh of gas per hour as there was no shut off, it was constantly on 10 hours a day consuming a lot of gas. So much so when we went to submit the reading the website was crashing due to the usage amount.
The whole catering industry is going towards electrical appliances because they are not only cheaper to run the servicing costs lest, and they reduce your carbon footprint.
The other issue we had was the heat generated by gas equipment. It can make the kitchen unbearable to work in, induction equipment doesn’t have that problem.
Speaking about the support they needed Luciano said: “It was going to cost £30k replace the oven to an electric one so we started looking into funding options.
We had help in the past purchasing equipment for the ice cream side of business via the Made Smarter scheme. When we told them our ambitions for decarbonising the kitchen they signposted us to get in touch with BEST.”
After contacting BEST the business received an energy audit.
Luciano added: “The energy audit was a big eye opener in terms of how much we were consuming in terms of gas and what we could achieve via Solar PV.
Also, the grant element was the game changer for us. To go ahead with our plans on our own would have taken at least another 12 months.
Speaking about the improvements made to the business as a result he said:
“Our kitchen is working a lot better now. The new oven is a lot easier to use and doesn’t radiate as much heat, the old one used to make working near it unbearable.
We have also found that the new electric pizza oven is super insulated so keeps its heat better and more eco friendly.
This is my first experience of using induction heat and I was surprised how quick and easy it is to use. Everything operates so much quicker which is allowing us to serve more people in less time
We have seen the gas costs come down straight away and we have been monitoring the Solar PV via an app and we are saving approximately £10 on a sunny day on electricity. It doesn’t sound like much but it soon adds up.
In terms of their experience Luciano said: “Everything was great straightforward. There were always people holding your hand through the journey.
We found that from initial contact we were led through the process seamlessly and any questions we had were promptly taken care of.
It all happened really quickly and had to be completed within 3 month which was a challenge but we completed on time.”
In terms of any growth or development in the business Luciano said: “It is too early to say but we can process orders a lot quicker and there is a lot more fluidity in the kitchen. The summer will be a telling time for us.
We also don’t need any additional cooling in the kitchen, the heat was unbearable for the staff when we had the old oven. We needed air conditioning before but shouldn’t need that this year, which will also save us money and reduce our carbon footprint.
The kitchen is a much nicer environment for the staff to work in now which helps with morale and improves the mood. When you’re working in a busy and sometimes stressful environment the last thing you need is to be too hot.
Lucianos final feedback was: “I was sceptical of someone doing an energy audit because I thought I’d done everything we could to reduce our energy use, but I learnt a lot.
It was a no brainer from the cash incentive point of view as we couldn’t have done the work so quickly on our own. The BEST grant has been a major helping hand to bring our plans to fruition.
My advice for other business would be if you’re putting off a project like this because of cash flow contact BEST and see if they can help.
We became a lot more efficient, and it has helped to safeguard our future by helping us to take control of our energy costs while a lot of other costs are going up.
I would highlight to make sure you get in touch straight away if you think it’s going to take longer than 3 months to give you time to get everything in place as things move really quickly.”