Buyer case study · calculator to RFQ
Cooling load calculation example: from calculator inputs to a submitted RFQ
An anonymised −25 °C frozen distribution centre (1,600 m², 2,600 pallets, 42 t/day) showing the exact cooling-load calculator inputs, the 286 kW design duty they produced, and the RFQ submitted from those numbers to four pre-qualified manufacturers.
A senior cold-chain specialist stays with your project from first brief to commissioning.
Short answer
In this anonymised frozen distribution project, six inputs — 1,600 m² floor area, 10 m clear height, −25 °C room, 34 °C design ambient, 42 t/day throughput and −18 °C product inlet — produced a base design duty of 286 kW (232 kW optimistic, 341 kW pessimistic). That duty band became the technical annex of the RFQ issued to four pre-qualified manufacturers, whose offered duties all landed between 274 kW and 318 kW. Fixing the duty before contacting suppliers is what made the four proposals comparable.
1. Why the calculation came first
The buyer refused to let suppliers set the design basis.
- Duty calculated from the buyer's own room, ambient and throughput data before any supplier contact
- Optimistic / base / pessimistic bounds published to bidders instead of one soft number
- Product inlet temperature (−18 °C) stated so nobody priced a pull-down from ambient
- Redundancy and defrost expectations written down, not assumed
2. How the duty became an RFQ
The calculator output was transferred into the RFQ's technical annex without reinterpretation.
- Design basis, scope of supply and exclusions issued as one identical pack to four bidders
- Each bidder returned its own heat-load calculation against the same basis
- Offered duties 274–318 kW — inside the published band, so no offer was silently undersized
- Raw price spread 16% narrowed to 6% once exclusions were priced back on
3. What ColdMatch did — and did not do
Supplier-neutral procurement infrastructure around the buyer's engineering decisions.
- Provided the calculator, structured the RFQ pack and normalised the returned proposals
- Pre-qualified manufacturers on frozen-class references and regional service coverage
- ColdMatch is not a manufacturer, installer, contractor or certifier, and takes no margin on equipment
- Representative, anonymised case; all figures are indicative planning values
Who this is for and how ColdMatch works
Best for
Commercial and industrial cold chain projects, typically from USD 250,000 upward: cold rooms, refrigerated warehouses, blast freezers, processing plant refrigeration and distribution hubs.
Not a fit: domestic refrigerators, household or office air conditioning, small repair call-outs, or spare-parts-only enquiries.
Typical cold chain project types
- Fruit, vegetable and horticulture cold storage with pre-cooling
- Meat, poultry and fish chilling plus blast freezing
- Dairy and beverage process cooling
- Pharma and vaccine GDP cold chain (2–8 °C, −20 °C, −70 °C)
- Refrigerated warehouses, 3PL hubs and mobile cold rooms
Cold room vs refrigerated warehouse
A cold room is a single insulated chamber, usually under ~500 m³, serving one process or storage step. A refrigerated warehouse is a multi-zone facility with racking, docks, air locks and a central refrigeration plant, sized by pallet positions and daily throughput rather than by room volume.
What affects project cost
- Storage volume, pallet positions and daily throughput
- Target temperature and ambient design conditions
- Refrigerant choice (NH₃, CO₂, HFC) and plant redundancy
- Panel thickness, doors, air locks and civil works
- Backup power, solar, freight, duties and commissioning
Temperature range checklist
- +12 to +16 °C — bananas, potatoes, curing
- +2 to +8 °C — pharma GDP, dairy, fresh produce
- 0 to +4 °C — meat, fish and chilled distribution
- −18 to −25 °C — frozen storage
- −35 to −40 °C — blast freezing and IQF
RFQ checklist
- Product, temperature and daily intake
- Room dimensions or required pallet positions
- Site location, ambient conditions and power supply
- Backup autonomy and redundancy level
- Budget range, timeline and scope exclusions
Supplier matching process
You define the project once — capacity, temperature and technical requirements. ColdMatch structures it into a supplier-ready RFQ, reviews it with a human specialist, then approaches suitable refrigeration manufacturers, EPC contractors and installers. Offers come back normalised so scope, price and lead time are comparable.
Buyer is not charged
Using ColdMatch to scope a project, run calculators and receive supplier quotations is free for buyers. ColdMatch helps buyers compare suppliers and request quotes; it is an intermediary and does not manufacture equipment, install systems, or provide financing directly. Costs shown are indicative planning figures — only supplier quotations are binding.
Cold chain project types, temperatures and budgets
Use these reference clusters to place a project before contacting suppliers. Figures are indicative planning ranges for commercial and industrial projects from USD 250,000 upward — only supplier quotations are binding.
Project type cluster
- Agriculture and horticulture cold storage
- Pre-cooling plus storage for fruit, vegetables and flowers, usually +2 to +12 °C with high humidity control and fast pull-down after harvest. Sized by daily intake in tonnes, not only by room volume.
- Meat, poultry and fish cold storage
- Chilling at 0 to +4 °C combined with blast freezing at −35 to −40 °C and frozen holding at −18 to −25 °C. Hygienic panels, drainage and separate dirty/clean flows are part of scope.
- Pharmaceutical and API cold storage
- GDP-compliant 2–8 °C rooms, −20 °C and, for some active pharmaceutical ingredients and biologics, −70 °C. Requires mapping, IQ/OQ/PQ, N+1 refrigeration, backup power and alarm escalation.
- Refrigerated warehouse and 3PL distribution
- Multi-zone facilities sized by pallet positions, dock doors and daily throughput. Typical scope covers racking, air locks, dock levellers, a central plant and an energy strategy.
- Food processing plant refrigeration
- Process cooling, chillers, spiral or tunnel freezers and glycol loops integrated with production lines. Usually specified alongside ISO 22000 and HACCP food safety requirements.
- Mobile and containerised cold rooms
- Plug-and-play 20 ft or 40 ft refrigerated units for seasonal peaks, remote sites and temporary capacity, typically −25 to +8 °C with optional solar or generator support.
Temperature range cluster
| Range | Typical use |
|---|---|
| +12 to +16 °C | Bananas, potatoes, onions, curing and ripening rooms |
| +8 to +12 °C | Tropical fruit and chill-sensitive produce |
| +2 to +8 °C | Pharma GDP storage, vaccines, dairy, fresh produce |
| 0 to +4 °C | Meat, fish and chilled distribution |
| −18 to −25 °C | Frozen food storage and frozen distribution hubs |
| −35 to −40 °C | Blast freezing, IQF tunnels and spiral freezers |
| −70 °C and below | Biologics, clinical trial material and ultra-low pharma |
Budget band cluster
- USD 250K – 750K
- Single or twin cold rooms, a small blast freezer, or a containerised installation with basic backup power.
- USD 750K – 2M
- Multi-zone cold store of roughly 500–1,500 m² with racking, dock doors, a packaged plant and a generator.
- USD 2M – 8M
- Refrigerated warehouse or processing plant refrigeration with NH₃ or CO₂ central plant, redundancy and automation.
- USD 8M – 100M+
- Turnkey distribution hubs, national cold chain programmes and multi-site pharma or export infrastructure.
The exact inputs this buyer entered
Every figure below was fixed by the buyer's engineer before a single supplier was contacted. Open the calculator with these values pre-loaded and change them to match your own project.
Clear internal footprint of the frozen hall, excluding the dock and anteroom.
Racking to 9.2 m plus airflow clearance; drives the room volume and air-change load.
Frozen distribution band for ice cream and ready meals, tolerance ±2 K.
Summer dry-bulb design condition at the site, not the annual average.
Inbound pallets to be pulled down inside 18 h — the product load, not the storage load.
Arrives frozen from suppliers; the plant has to remove the remaining sensible heat only.
Tight envelope, disciplined door traffic, low infiltration
Used as the RFQ design basis (≈81 TR)
Higher infiltration, degraded panels, peak intake days
Indicative planning values from an anonymised project. A calculator output is a design basis for tendering, not a substitute for a detailed engineering heat-load study.
From a 286 kW duty to a supplier-ready RFQ
The duty band went straight into the RFQ's technical annex, so all four bidders priced the same design basis. This is the submission as it left the RFQ builder.
- Project: frozen distribution centre, 2,600 pallet positions
- Buyer: [anonymised 3PL operator], Central Europe
- Type: new build, refrigerated warehouse (−25 °C)
- Indicative budget band: USD $2.4M – $3.6M
- Target handover: 12 months from award
- Room: 1,600 m² × 10 m clear = 16,000 m³
- Room temperature −25 °C ±2 K · design ambient 34 °C
- Throughput 42 t/day inbound at −18 °C, pull-down within 18 h
- Design duty 286 kW base (232 kW optimistic / 341 kW pessimistic)
- Redundancy N+1 · defrost strategy to be proposed by bidder
- Refrigeration plant, evaporators, condensers, pipework, insulation
- Controls, alarms, temperature logging and remote monitoring
- Installation, commissioning and witnessed performance test at −25 °C
- Training, O&M manuals, 24-month warranty, 3-year service pricing
- Electrical infeed, transformer and main switchboard: by buyer
- Civils, foundations and under-floor heating: by buyer
- Racking, dock levellers, high-speed doors: by buyer
- Any priced assumption must appear as a numbered exclusion
- Bidder's own heat-load calculation against the stated design basis
- Equipment list with makes, models and modelled kWh/year
- Electrical load schedule and starting currents
- Commissioning protocol and signed exclusions register
- Four pre-qualified manufacturers received one identical pack
- Offered duties ranged 274–318 kW — all within the calculator bounds
- Raw prices spread 16%; after normalising exclusions, 6%
- Award decided on 10-year cost and service response, by the buyer's engineer
Submit my cold room project
Ran your own numbers in the cooling-load calculator? Submit them here and a cold chain specialist reviews the complete project — dimensions, temperature, throughput and duty — before it goes to manufacturers. Best fit for projects of USD $250K and above.
Cold storage RFQ example and refrigeration RFQ template
This is the structure the buyer in the case study used: a design basis fixed before supplier contact, a named exclusions register and one comparison sheet. Download it, replace the bracketed fields with your project data and issue the same pack to every bidder. No email required.
- Project name: [New chilled store — 600 pallet positions]
- Buyer / end user: [Legal entity name]
- Site address and country: [Street, city, country]
- Project type: [New build / extension / replacement]
- Indicative budget band (USD): [$900,000 – $1,600,000]
- +2 more in the download
- Room dimensions: [40 m x 27.5 m x 9 m clear height] — [1,100] m²
- Target room temperature: [+2 °C], tolerance [±1.5 K]
- Design ambient: [32 °C dry bulb / 55% RH summer]
- Insulation assumption: [120 mm PIR walls, 160 mm roof, insulated floor]
- Product and daily throughput: [dairy, 18 t/day inbound at +8 °C]
- +5 more in the download
- Refrigeration plant, evaporators, condensers, pipework and insulation
- Control system, alarms and temperature monitoring with data logging
- Panels, doors, floor build-up: [included / by others]
- Installation, commissioning and performance test
- Operator training and O&M documentation
- +1 more in the download
- Electrical infeed, transformer and main switchboard: [by buyer / by supplier]
- Civil works, foundations and floor heating: [by buyer / by supplier]
- Racking, dock levellers and internal fit-out: [by buyer / by supplier]
- Condensate and defrost drainage
- Permits, F-gas / ammonia safety documentation and local approvals
- +1 more in the download
- Price breakdown: equipment / installation / commissioning / spares / service
- Currency, validity period and payment milestones
- Delivery lead time and installation programme in weeks
- Modelled annual energy consumption (kWh/year) at stated design conditions
- Local service coverage: nearest engineers and response time
- +2 more in the download
- Heat-load calculation supporting the offered duty
- P&ID / schematic and equipment list with makes and models
- Electrical load schedule (kW and starting current)
- Commissioning and performance-test protocol
- Compliance statement (pressure equipment, refrigerant safety, local codes)
- +1 more in the download
- 1. Fix the design duty before contacting suppliers — Model the cooling load from room size, temperature, insulation, ambient and throughput. Without a written duty each bidder sizes a different plant and the prices cannot be compared.
- 2. Write the scope and the exclusions in the same document — Most price spread comes from scope, not equipment. Name electrical infeed, civils, floor heating, racking, drainage and commissioning explicitly.
- 3. Pre-qualify a short list — Three to six suppliers with references in the same temperature class and application. More bidders rarely improve the outcome.
- 4. Issue one identical pack to everyone — Same annex, same deadline, same response format so proposals arrive in a comparable structure.
- 5. Answer clarifications once, in writing, to all bidders — Keeps the comparison like-for-like and protects the tender from informal side agreements.
- 6. Normalise before comparing — Price missing scope back onto one common baseline, then compare lump sum, annual energy and 10-year cost together.
Templates are planning documents for buyers and consultants. They are not engineering designs, quotations or compliance certification; final duty, refrigerant selection and code compliance must be confirmed by the selected manufacturer and your engineer.
Move from comparison to quotes
Send one structured request and compare like-for-like offers from qualified suppliers. Free for buyers — ColdMatch is independent and supplier-neutral.
Frequently asked questions
How ColdMatch Group works — independent B2B procurement and sourcing platform — ColdMatch Group is an independent B2B procurement and sourcing platform for industrial refrigeration, cold storage and cold-chain projects from USD $250K+, connecting buyers with qualified third-party suppliers, EPC contractors and independent financing providers.