Keeping the customers focussed on the chocolate and not the cold at Cadbury World.

Thermoscreens, one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of Air Curtains, has provided IRS and Cadbury World with a bespoke climate solution for their UK customer experience centre.
With over 50 years of experience, Thermoscreens delivers the best solution every time.

The Challenge

The main entrance at Cadbury World sees footfall into the hundreds of thousands each year, due to it being one of the midland’s largest leisure attractions.
As the doors are frequently in action, the main reception area needed a soliton to maintain the perfect customer environment inside and keep the winter cold or summer heat outside. Nobody wants to have melted chocolate. Thermoscreens also needed to keep the energy usage and costs to a minimum, conserving the carbon footprint. The three air curtains that served the main visitor’s entrance at Cadbury World were becoming increasingly unreliable, mainly due to age and availability of spare parts.

Although essential to the comfort of the visitors and staff, these curtains require a significant amount of electrical energy (i.e. a total of 60 kW, which equates to around £9.00 per hour).

The Solution

Mark Parsons, IRS’s Managing Director has stated:
As Mitsubishi “Diamond Quality Partners” IRS were aware of Mitsubishi’s partnership with Thermoscreens, and the development of a Heat Pump Version of
the door curtains. Using reverse cycle refrigeration technology, 60 kW of heat could be provided with around 20 kW of electrical input (i.e. £3.00 per hour), saving approximately 13K Tons of Carbon emission, (i.e.60%). Cadbury World management are very receptive to any initiative that will reduce their Carbon Footprint and reduce their energy costs, so the proposal was accepted.

The Result

The air curtains were successfully installed and whilst purchase and installation costs were higher than that of a conventional system, based on Cadbury Worlds operating hours, we estimated an ROI within 5 years, with year-on-year savings of approximately £9K. The installed air curtains will provide cooling throughout the summer, which in many installations would eliminate the requirement for a separate “A/C” system.

Installation Period

The curtains have been in successful operation since October 2021.

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