When specialty frozen food retailer M&M Meat Shops began developing a new strategy to become more competitive, it explored various store improvement projects that would enhance shopper experience, build the bottom line, and could be replicated across its 430 franchise locations as part of a multi-year renovation mandate. The grocer found one cost-cutting answer in GE’s ImmersionTM RV40 LED refrigerated display lighting for reach-in cases. The energy-efficient LED retail lighting systems will save M&M Meat Shops about $600,000 in lighting costs annually once installations are complete.

As part of an eight-year cycle that mandates LED lighting upgrades be made at the time of each store renovation, franchises are replacing T10 fluorescent lights with Immersion RV40 LED lighting systems. A typical location containing 15 glass freezer doors will reduce direct energy consumption by nearly 6,000 kilowatt hours (kWhs) a year, while also using less indirect energy as the result of fewer freezer compressor cycles—an additional 2,700 kWh reduction. At a $.10 kWh rate and 12 hours of operation a day, the average M&M Meat Shops location will save about $870 a year in lighting energy costs alone.

GE’s LED refrigerated display lighting solution will also eliminate the maintenance cost of replacement ballasts and high-output fluorescent lamps. With Immersion RV40 LED lighting carrying an expected five-year service life, M&M Meat Shops anticipates annual upkeep will be reduced 97 percent as the result of virtually no bulb and ballast replacements—an approximate $525 savings per store.

This brings combined energy and maintenance reductions to nearly $1,400 for each franchisee to complete its lighting upgrade. To date, 150 M&M Meat Shops locations have made the switch to GE’s ecomagination℠ LED technology, a combined $210,000 annual lighting cost savings. These savings will grow to about $600,000 a year across all 430 stores when the renovation cycle is complete.