Will the Friday delivery fit your proposed coolroom?

The coolroom looks generous on the floor plan. Then the Friday delivery arrives while yesterday’s stock is still inside, and eight crates end up in the aisle. The missing dimension was the overlap.

Choose a commercial coolroom by proving its peak stock position, access and refrigeration duty together. An external footprint or cubic-metre figure cannot tell you whether your containers fit, your team can rotate them, or the plant can handle the incoming product.

Start with the worked stock map below. It turns “we need a bigger room” into a brief a designer can test. The numbers are fictional: they demonstrate a purchasing method, not a room specification or permission to hold food outside temperature control.

Find the busiest stock position

Count the actual containers at the point where old stock and a new delivery overlap. Record their outside dimensions, lids and handles, loaded weight, product category and required storage conditions. A carton of bottled drinks and a covered container of prepared food are different storage jobs even when their footprints match.

Use a real busy delivery day, including stock already committed to preparation. Deduct an item only when it has actually left this room for a suitable destination. A prep team’s intention to collect six crates later does not create space for a delivery now.

Separate storage from production cooling. Ask whether incoming product is already at its required storage temperature, or whether a separate cooling process is needed. Give the refrigeration designer the incoming mass, temperature and timing; do not assume empty shelf positions prove cooling capability.

Worked map: 40 positions meet 48 crates

Our hypothetical restaurant proposes five rack bays. Each has four usable shelf levels, with two nominated crates per level: 5 × 4 × 2 = 40 positions. Every sample crate has an outside footprint of 600 × 400 mm. A proposed 1200 × 450 mm shelf is only a nominal fit for two; uprights, tolerances, shelf lips, airflow and the ability to grip each crate still need checking.

Assume all counted crates are single-layer positions: no stacking, shared positions or loose packs. These assumptions make the shortage visible. They do not establish a rack’s usable dimensions, load rating or permitted configuration.

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

The arithmetic is 22 − 6 + 32 = 48. Compared with 40 proposed positions, the shortage is eight. Counting only the 32 arriving crates would have produced the wrong purchasing decision.

Forty-eight is a lower-bound position count for this simplified load, not a recommendation to buy six bays. Whole-shelf allocation, product separation, quarantined stock, oversized packs and cleaning access may consume additional positions. The room designer still has to place the racks, evaporator, door and movement routes.

Test the delivery sequence before adding a bay

Timing changes the answer. In the base example, six crates leave before the delivery. If that collection slips until after the delivery, the overlap becomes 22 + 32 = 54 positions. The same proposed room is now fourteen positions short. Record this as a second scenario rather than hiding it in an optimistic average.

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

These times illustrate inventory movement only. They specify no permitted time out of refrigeration, acceptance temperature or shelf life. Your receiving and food-safety procedures govern the actual operation.

There are several proposals worth testing: a larger usable layout; a genuinely different delivery schedule; a split delivery; or a different stockholding policy. For example, moving eight incoming crates to a later delivery would reduce the base overlap to 40. It would still leave no spare positions and would not fix a delayed collection. Ask what happens when a delivery is early, an event is added or the nominated staff member is absent.

Draw usable storage and the route through it

Give the designer a container schedule and ask for a scaled internal layout. Show which shelf each group uses and how old stock comes out before new stock goes in. Mark the largest trolley, its turning movement and the door’s usable opening with the hardware fitted.

Draw the proposed door both open and closed, and show the approach outside the room. A clear internal aisle is little use if a delivery trolley blocks the kitchen’s working route. Check thresholds, ramps, floor levels, cleaning access and whether staff can reach the rear container without unloading its neighbour.

Ask the designer to mark required air paths and no-storage areas around the selected equipment. Do not fill every gap on the drawing with another crate. Have the rack supplier confirm shelf capacity, bay capacity, permitted loading and performance in the intended environment using the actual loaded weights.

Food grouping also matters. FSANZ advises separating raw meat and seafood from ready-to-eat food, or placing them below it. Have the venue’s food-safety lead resolve the real zoning; the three example rows above are demand groups, not an approved hygiene layout.

Keep refrigeration duty separate from rack capacity

“It holds 48 crates” answers a space question. It does not establish a refrigeration selection. Supply the product types and temperatures, delivery mass and frequency, room conditions, door activity, location of heat-rejection equipment and any production load. Ask the designer to return the design assumptions with the proposal.

Actrol’s 2022 engineering guide illustrates why: its coolroom heat-load tables state assumptions for ambient conditions, product entry temperature, usage and pull-down time. Those conditional tables are not a current equipment selection or a food-cooling procedure. Changing the duty can change the selection even when the room dimensions stay the same.

Specify freezer operation separately at the start. Ask the designer to address the enclosure, floor, door, refrigeration and drainage for that intended use. Treat a later change of temperature or product load as a design review, rather than a thermostat adjustment.

Put an owner beside every part of the quote

A price headed “coolroom supply” can leave several jobs unresolved. Compare the complete installed scope and identify who supplies, connects, coordinates and tests each interface. An exclusion needs both an owner and a cost treatment.

• Enclosure and floor: exact internal and external dimensions, panels, floor preparation, finishes, threshold and any ramp.
• Refrigeration and services: plant location, heat rejection, pipe route, power, drainage, controls and access for maintenance.
• Storage and movement: actual racks and load ratings, clear openings, receiving route and protective fittings.
• People and handover: door release and safety provisions, lighting, monitoring, alarm response, operating instructions and demonstrated handover checks.

Have the relevant designer, trades and local authority confirm the requirements for your premises. Where beverage-dispensing gases are involved, include that system in the specialist assessment: SafeWork NSW’s cellar safety alert describes gas accumulation risks in enclosed cellars and coolrooms. A temperature alarm does not assess those risks.

Ask what the handover will demonstrate under agreed representative conditions, who records the results and who responds to an unresolved item. For potentially hazardous food, FSANZ’s storage guidance specifies 5°C or colder and direct temperature checks. A displayed air temperature alone should not be your evidence that the stored food is controlled. Set the monitoring and response procedure with the responsible food-safety personnel.

Sources and example limits

Primary references checked for this guide: FSANZ, Storing food safely (page updated 1 October 2025); Actrol, Engineering Technical Data (2022, printed page 264 heat-load assumptions); and SafeWork NSW, Cellar safety — exposure to gases (20 May 2019). The NSW alert addresses dispensing-gas risks in its stated jurisdiction; it is not a complete national coolroom specification.

The restaurant, counts, shelf arrangement and timeline are fictional purchasing examples. No actual venue, product trial, rack capacity, refrigeration performance, installation approval or savings are claimed. Obtain a site-specific design and the current selected equipment documents before ordering.