Spring Ledge Farm

While NRM is known for our ability to optimize retail-centric coolers and freezers through utility-sponsored small business programs, we get excited when we can help companies that are a little different. Spring Ledge Farm in New London, NH, is just that type of company. Spring Ledge is a grower and seller of fruits, veggies, and flowers, and they operate a bustling farmstand that offers locally sourced food to the community.

Their farm has two coolers — one for fresh vegetables, and one for fresh fruit. Each of these have their own stringent temperature requirements so they don’t spoil, and it means a lot to NRM when a business relies on us with such important equipment. A bottle of water or soda in a cooler in a convenience store will be OK with a 3- or 4-degree change in temperature, but leafy greens? Or tomatoes? They need to be at their specific temperatures in storage for food safety.

NRM’s solution gives them precise control over temperatures and automatically logs the data for any FSMA or HACCP reporting. (While also slashing runtimes, and saving energy)

For Greg Berger, owner of Spring Ledge Farm, the clear display of his system’s monthly runtimes is probably his favorite feature. He says he checks it all the time, and likes to keep track of how it performs. On average, both coolers run about 25% of the time they did before NRM’s solution was integrated, while still satisfying temperatures.

They actively work towards their sustainability goals—from types of soil used to working with food banks to eliminate waste to optimizing their greenhouses through Conservation grants—so the idea of reducing their energy dependency through refrigeration optimization was appealing.

The initial analysis from NRM found an opportunity to slash almost 5,000 kWh from their annual electric usage, but they’re actually saving more, Greg said.