Ice cream on a hot summer day, or any time of year, is always a treat. But the process of creating the perfect flavor, to exact specifications, is complex. Perry’s Ice Cream, which manufactures ice cream bars, pints, squrounds and 3-gallon tubs for grocery stores, independent shops and sports stadiums in its Akron, N.Y., manufacturing plant. A new spiral freezing tunnel had been installed to produce a new line of ice cream bars and required holding a constant temperature with varying heat loads to produce a variety of products on the line.
“We weren’t able to reach the desired temperature of minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit,” explained Matthew Stachura, Perry’s PSM (process safety management) coordinator. “We were constantly needing to adjust the hand expansion valve and the suction header would flood and couldn’t get refrigerant through the system.” In addition to the constant maintenance, which slowed production, the plant also had to lower the freezer’s evaporating temperature by 5-10 degrees, increasing energy consumption and utility costs.
‘A Brain Behind Everything’
As the team struggled with the freezer maintenance, Stachura and some of his colleagues attended a Safety Day hosted by the Western NY chapter of the Refrigerating Engineers and Technicians Association (RETA) where suppliers were invited to share their solutions for ammonia refrigeration. One of the exhibitors was Hernan Hidalgo, Danfoss Climate Solutions’ industrial refrigeration sales director in North America. Hidalgo presented NeoCharge, a complete solution with sensors, control valves and an electronic controller. Suitable for both new installations and retrofits of existing systems, the NeoCharge components work together to not only lower costs but also reduce the environmental impact of refrigeration operations by reducing ammonia charge. Built-in safety features such as data monitoring and alarm notifications guarantee continuous operation, minimizing downtime and maximizing system uptime.
Stachura had previously seen a webinar on NeoCharge that had been hosted by the International Institute of All-Natural Refrigeration (IIAR) and was intrigued. Following discussion with Hidalgo, Perry’s decided that NeoCharge was the solution the company was seeking to improve the performance of the new spiral freezer.
NeoCharge optimizes industrial refrigeration systems by determining and then feeding the correct amount of refrigerant that the equipment needs through the evaporator coil. It integrates with existing PLCs and supervisory systems, reducing complexity and improving control. The solution supports both direct expansion (DX) and recirculated systems and includes digital monitoring features. In DX systems, NeoCharge eliminates superheat by operating evaporators in a much more stable and controlled way. This means that ammonia returns from evaporators with zero superheat or slightly wet. In recirculating systems, such as the one used by Perry’s, NeoCharge delivers a stable and controllable low recirculating ratio regardless of changing conditions. This reduces the ammonia charge by 30-40% in existing systems and even more in new systems.
Food processing is a challenging application due to the constant change of the variables involved in operations. Perry’s needed the tunnel to maintain a constant set temperature no matter what type or flavor of ice cream bars were being produced at a particular moment in time. Due to the specific ingredients, each ice cream flavor - vanilla, chocolate, ice cream with nuts or chips, etc - requires a constant temperature for ideal results. NeoCharge offers its users the ability to overcome changes in heat load in real time due to the advanced algorithm receiving feedback from the proprietary sensor.
“A manual refrigeration system is hard to manage due to the instabilities,” said Stachura. “Adopting NeoCharge gave us a brain behind everything.”
Installation and Implementation
The first step in the installation process – which was completed in January 2025 – was to retrofit the existing system for the control valves required for NeoCharge, which was done in collaboration with a contractor. Then, over a period of three days, the Danfoss industrial refrigeration team installed the full NeoCharge solution, consisting of the NeoSensor, NeoCharge panel with ICAD600B actuator, ICF valve station with ICFR20 motorized control valve module, and Danfoss’ CoolConfig software. The system was easy to integrate with Modbus-ready components and compatible with existing PLC infrastructure. Notably, the installation was conducted during a regular plant maintenance period and installed over 72 hours with no disruptions to production.
In the months following implementation of NeoCharge, Perry’s saw “phenomenal results,” reported Stachura. The spiral freezer is able to maintain temperatures as low as minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit and evaporator temperatures of minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Output is now consistently 22,500 bars per hour, meeting production targets. “We are even dialing back on how much the compressors are running, reducing load and utility costs,” said Stachura.
Stachura also noted, “We have had a lot of great interaction with the Danfoss team during the process and are continuing to share data from operations.” Danfoss industrial refrigeration experts are continuing to support Perry’s monitoring performance and make firmware updates as needed.
“NeoCharge demonstrates how digital control strategies and low-charge refrigeration can address performance issues and sustainability goals in food industry applications,” said Hidalgo. “In addition to delivering energy efficiency and low-charge operation in cold storage and food processing, the retrofit and integration process is seamless, futureproofing legacy systems with enhanced control and sustainability.”