Abstract
Abstract This article presents a study on customer knowledge and habits regarding the use of refrigerated display cabinets (RDC). The study was carried out on a sample of Portuguese retail stores’ customers, using a questionnaire survey available through an Internet platform. The sample consisted of 136 individuals, who voluntarily participated in the study. Questions included the characterization of the sociodemographic population involved. The questionnaire included different questions to related with RDC, namely customer knowledge about the appearance of each RDC equipment, questions to evaluate the respondents’ perception about the advantages and disadvantages related to open or glass-door closed RDC, questions to assess the participants’ habits and behavior when purchasing food products from glass-door closed RDC (frequency and duration of door open), questions to characterize the consumers’ habits on purchasing food products from RDC, and also questions to characterize the consumers’ shopping attitudes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2. The results seem to indicate that customers prefer closed RDC; for example, 61.8% of participants prefer products preserved in glass-door closed RDC, against 6.6% that admit to preferring products preserved in open RDC. Therefore, we can deduce that the existence of doors does not appear to be an obstacle to purchasing food products. Regarding the use of glass-door closed RDC, 80.1% of the participants say they just open the door once, and 53.7% of the costumers believe they keep the door open in the interval [4‒6 s]. This indicates that Portuguese customers are quite well informed about food safety issues and seem to follow assertive attitudes when purchasing food products from RDC. This study reinforces the benefits of replacing open RDC by closed glass-doors allowing significant energy savings.
Highlights
The rational and efficient use of energy is one of the most important concerns and a worldwide challenge
The main goal of the present study is to characterize the Portuguese customer knowledge about the refrigerated display cabinets (RDC), their perception concerning the advantages/disadvantages linked with each one, and identify the customer habits on the use of these cabinets when handling or purchasing the food product, as well as their sensitivity to the rational and efficient energy use
The results indicate that a great majority of customers prefer closed glass doors RDC
Summary
The rational and efficient use of energy is one of the most important concerns and a worldwide challenge. In retail food stores, refrigerated display cabinets (RDC) are normally used simultaneously to exhibit and preserve food products. This type of equipment is usually open at the front, with a considerable area for displaying food products that can be quickly and accessed by customers without inconvenience [3–5]. This type of cabinet can be equipped with one or more air curtains at the front, acting as a barrier between the products and the warmer surrounding ambient air [3]. Without air curtain installed, warm air infiltration across the air curtain of a vertical open RDC represents about 70% of the total refrigeration load [4,6,7]
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