EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Food City operates 104 supermarket outlets in Southeast Kentucky, Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. Fed up with the high energy costs and maintenance hassles of fluorescent lighting fixtures in vertical refrigerated and frozen cases, the grocer recently upgraded to GE Lighting's Immersion™ RV40 LED lighting system across 89 stores. Bright, sparkling coolers now command shoppers' attention while Food City will see a more than $300,000 drop in annual case lighting costs based on an electricity rate of $.11 per kilowatt hour and having the case lights on eighteen hours each day.
With a goal of boosting the bottom line, Food City evaluated a wide array of strategic options, looking for the one that would have the maximum impact. Conversion to long-life LED lighting could significantly reduce lighting and refrigeration costs, its leading overhead expenses, and promise fewer service calls.
"The biggest expense was not replacement lamps and ballasts, but sending contractors to the stores to begin with," notes Keith Norton, director of engineering for Food City, "Preventative maintenance measures were costing Food City more than $5 per door per year, or $37,000 annually."
By replacing fluorescent fixtures with LED fixtures, Food City will see total energy savings exceeding $300,000 now that the grocery chain uses 1,965,000 fewer kilowatt hours of electricity. Added to maintenance savings, Food City's lighting and refrigeration costs have fallen an estimated $337,000 a year.
The visual appeal of the products tested also played a role in Food City's decision to choose the GE system. Using advanced optics, the Immersion RV40 system greatly diminishes glare while helping bring to life the full vibrancy of food packaging colors.
View the full-text press release in the GE Lighting pressroom.
About GE Lighting
GE Lighting invents with the vigor of its founder Thomas Edison to develop energy-efficient solutions that change the way people light their world in commercial, industrial, municipal and residential settings. The business employs over 17,000 people in more than 100 countries, and sells products under the Reveal® and Energy Smart® consumer brands, and Evolve™, GTx™, Immersion™, Infusion™, Lumination™ and Tetra® commercial brands, all trademarks of GE. General Electric (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter to build a world that works better. For more information, visit www.gelighting.com.
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David Schuellerman
GE Consumer & Industrial
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