THE smell of Bakewell tarts is to be added to Waitrose's refrigeration gases to sniff out refrigerant leaks.
The Bakewell tart scent of cherries and almonds will be added to the HFC gases in the retailer's fridges.

Waitrose hopes the new initiative will help it achieve its target of cutting refrigerant leaks by 50% in the next three years.

The strong scent is so far being used in two Waitrose shops - Wallingford and Monmouth. If trials are successful, the retailer will be using it across more of its stores and is considering a range of other smells to use.

Waitrose is on its way to completely phasing out HFC gases from its fridges.

Waitrose head of engineering Steve Isaia: 'We realise it sounds like a funny thing to do, but there's a serious reason behind it. HFC gases are a major contributor towards global warming - so while we're working through our shops getting rid of HFCs we wanted to make sure leaks are kept to an absolute minimum.

He added: 'We've taken great strides with our refrigeration this year, but this is literally the icing on the cake!'.