Manor Concepts has invested £250,000 in a new research and development facility.

Based at the company’s headquarters in Sandy, Bedfordshire, the laboratory and manufacturing site took five months to complete. It will enable the company to significantly increase its product range of retail cabinets and door products.

Thanks to the incorporation of the latest research and development technology, the new facility will enable both divisions to continue to design and rigorously test the firm’s product ranges using a range of different parameters.

The test room caters for a variety of cabinet sizes up to 4m in length. Using a top-of-the-range data logging system, Manor can monitor all the key elements of a cabinet’s functions, including its internal temperatures, the refrigeration system temperature, the refrigerant mass flow and all of its electrical circuits.

Both the environment and the cross air flow within the R&D test centre are controlled by a Trend controller, which allows six pre-set environments to be selected at the push of a button, the UK standard being generally 25ºC and 60% relative humidity. However, using this equipment, cabinets and doors can be tested in a wide range of operational environments to suit particular needs.

Managing director, Michael Tucker, said: “We’re already taking full advantage of our new R&D facility, developing essential, energy efficient products that meet the growing demand from the retail trade.

“European standards and requirements are constantly being updated and it is vital that our products not only meet but exceed these standards.”

Manor Concepts operates as two trading divisions: Manor Refrigerated Cabinets and coolsuredoors. Manor Refrigerated Cabinets supplies a wide range of refrigerated display cabinets for food and drink retailers and coolsuredoors is a specialist door manufacturer for retail chiller cabinets.