Why Intelligent Refrigeration Facilities Management (IRFM) should be grocery’s biggest 2026 focus
Refrigeration is grocery’s most critical business asset. From integral cabinets and pack systems to freezers and coldrooms, grocers depend on refrigeration to keep inventory moving, revenue flowing and margins protected.
Without owned, centralised refrigeration data, however, retailers leave themselves exposed — reliant on their facilities management supply chain for visibility, or vulnerable to unnoticed degradation, asset failure and off-sales during periods of peak trade.
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89% of retailers are using or assessing AI — but only 31% are deploying it in physical stores.
Source: NVIDIA State of AI in Retail
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While retailers are accelerating AI investment, progress in physical stores is often blocked by fragmented operational data locked inside proprietary control systems or managed externally by IFRM providers.
To explore how leading grocers are addressing this challenge, we spoke to David Tingle, Director of Solution Engineering at LoweConex, about the rise of Intelligent Refrigeration Facilities Management (IRFM) and why data ownership is now critical.
Q1: What is Intelligent Refrigeration Facilities Management (IRFM)
DT: IRFM is about centralising high-quality refrigeration data from across the estate into a retailer-owned cloud layer.
Every refrigeration asset generates thousands of datapoints — from temperatures and setpoints to alarms, run states and early fault indicators. Across large estates, this quickly scales into billions of datapoints.
IRFM brings that data together, enables real-time analysis, and uses automation to drive operational change — through alerts, commands and prompts that trigger action in stores or across maintenance teams.
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“IRFM gives retailers direct ownership, visibility and control of refrigeration data that has historically sat in silos or outside the organisation.”
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Historically, this data has either been locked inside store-level BMS platforms or held by FM suppliers. IRFM changes that operating model.
Q2: Why is IRFM becoming a priority now?
DT: The refrigeration landscape is changing rapidly.
In the UK and EU, HFC and F-Gas phase-downs are accelerating. In the US, retailers are already facing fines for refrigerant leaks and for operating systems with high global warming potential (GWP).
At the same time, retailers are under pressure to operationalise AI. Capabilities like predictive maintenance, refrigeration digital twins and automated leak detection all depend on access to high-frequency, historical asset data.
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Advanced AI use cases in stores are impossible without continuous access to live and historical refrigeration data.
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Retailers that rely solely on fully outsourced FM contracts often lack the data foundations required to support these innovations. IRFM enables grocers to reclaim data ownership and prepare their estates for advanced analytics.
Q3: What challenges does IRFM solve for grocers?
DT: IRFM delivers value across three core areas:
- Better capital decision-making
Performance data helps retailers replace or maintain the right assets at the right time, often deferring significant CapEx. - Reduced maintenance waste
IRFM supports condition-based maintenance, reducing unnecessary call-outs and preparing estates for predictive maintenance at scale. - Energy and performance optimisation
Continuous optimisation ensures assets operate at peak efficiency, cutting energy waste and operational costs.
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“IRFM is one of the fastest-return technology investments grocers can make — typically delivering ROI within 3–6 months.”
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Q4: What does IFRM look like in practice?
DT: Many leading brands are already implementing IRFM.
Midcounties Co-operative uses Conex OS to centralise refrigeration and HVAC data into a single cloud layer, creating one source of truth across the estate.
In 2025, Aldi UK & Ireland began deploying Conex OS to centralise refrigeration data across its UK and Ireland stores.
Beyond retail, manufacturers and service providers such as Zero Zone in the US and Lowe Rental in the UK use the platform to optimise field maintenance and asset uptime.
Q5: How can retailers get started on their IRFM journey?
DT: Getting started depends on where retailers are at today, but it doesn’t need to be confusing. Feel free to reach out to any of the LoweConex team on LinkedIn who are all always happy to help or chat.
We’ll also be discussing IRFM on stage at EuroShop 2026, where retailers can learn more about how to modernise refrigeration data strategies. Learn more about that event and panel on our website here.
