Joy Cone Company is the nation’s leading manufacturer of ice cream cones – and the largest cone company in the world. Their two U.S. facilities produce more than 1.5 billion cones annually for retail and food service venues, so operational efficiency is paramount. At their 521,000-SF eastern manufacturing plant, Joy Cone was considering a large investment to replace their existing low-efficiency electric chillers to allow for expansion of the manufacturing facility. They needed a study to determine the most cost-effective solution.

RETTEW performed a cooling system upgrade analysis and looked at implementing combined heat and power (CHP) or natural gas-fueled adsorption chillers at the Hermitage, Pennsylvania, facility. Our study included multiple scenarios and laid out construction costs, total project costs, electrical and natural gas costs, utility costs, as well as capital and operational savings for each system. Ultimately we recommended an alternative that changed to adsorptive cooling over electric and saved Joy Cone 700 kilowatts of energy demand, equating to $2 million in savings over a ten-year span versus using electricity.