For this Cool Talk, we have had the opportunity to interview Tommy Scavone. Tommy has a bachelor in economics and marketing, and a master’s in international business management. He started working in the refrigeration industry when he started working for Rivacold in 2013. Within Rivacold, he worked for 8 years at the Italian HQs as Export Manager for the UK and Ireland areas, and as a project leader for the American Business Unit Start-up. Then after 8 years he relocated to the US in 2021, to become sales manager at Rivacold America which is responsible for the food retail segment and special applications throughout the North American region. Rivacold was established in 1966 as a supplier of condensing units and hermetic systems to manufacture refrigerated counters and cabinets. However, throughout the years Rivacold reached an important position as a manufacturer and distributor of components of refrigeration and air conditioning appliances.
Why joining the Green Cooling Initiative?
Rivacold America joined this initiative to promote the transition to sustainable refrigeration with energy efficient solutions and natural refrigerants such as CO2 and propane as our European team has done for several years.
How does your company contribute to making the RAC sector more climate-friendly?
Rivacold believes in the future global use of natural refrigerants. We’ve made important investments to bring this technology to the North American region (NAR), offering today the most complete portfolio on the market. With applications ranging from small, single door reach-in refrigerators to large cold storage facilities and supermarkets of any size, our new product development is focused on the use of natural refrigerants and variable-speed technology to sharply reduce the TEWI (Total Equivalent Warming Impact.
Where do you see the biggest obstacle for green cooling technologies at the moment?
The biggest obstacles I perceive are a lack of technicians, slow regulations in the US, and in some cases the higher costs that come with using natural refrigerants, as well as the premium cost compared to f-gas based refrigerant solution. But as the market of natural refrigerants progresses this problem should solve itself.
What would an ideal cooling sector look like in the future?
We understand that converting an entire store to natural refrigerants all at once can be challenging, especially in the case of traditional multi-compressor rack concepts. However, Rivacold offers modular solutions, with redundancy options, for easy retrofits and extreme flexibility when adding new refrigeration loads to existing stores to advance this ideal cooling sector.
What makes you believe that we will master the transition to Green Cooling?
We are confident because Rivacold is communicating to the market that natural refrigerant solutions are:
- available today,
- easy-to-install,
- allow energy savings,
- guarantee the end user a future-proof and easy solutions in terms of regulations,
We are therefore promoting in the market advanced technology and green refrigeration adoption.
Speaking of safety: what would you say to people who think natural refrigerants are too risky to handle?
Natural refrigerants are not a new thing. Natural refrigerants have been used in Europe and other countries for years. During these years, safety and performance have been well-developed and documented. On top of that, in the North American Region some of the segments, like the food service business, have already approved and adopted the use of natural refrigerants more than 5 years ago. My point being that a chain of suppliers and service technicians who work on a daily basis with natural refrigerants already exists in the US!
