Refrigeration / Fruit and vegetable storages

Meanwhile, the youth training center at the FC Bayern headquarters was getting a bit outdated and also bursting at the seams. That is why the club has been building a new, groundbreaking youth training center for the junior teams on an area of 30 hectares in the north of Munich costing around €70 million – including a clubhouse, a large cafeteria, medical practice, physiotherapy rooms, with the academy including 35 apartments as the centerpiece, as well as a stadium (seating 2,500 people) and a triple purpose sports hall. It will be fully operational in the summer 2017. Kelvion has supplied the evaporators for the storage rooms to ensure safe and reliable refrigeration.

FC Bayern is creating its new talent center a good two kilometers (as the crow flies) from the glowing red Allianz Arena, the soccer temple of the nation. From the terraces of the new center, where derby games up to the A-Juniors German league will be played, the junior players will have a clear view of the Arena, their ultimate goal in mind and in sight. The handball players as well as the juniors of the club's successful basketball team will also be moving into the new complex. In the academy 35 apartments remain initially reserved for the footballers. It will accommodate the hopes of the U-9 to U-23 junior soccer players and provide them with optimum conditions for daily training in the neighboring sports facilities.

At the old location, Bayern did not even have half of this residential capacity. The planning for the new construction took ten years. The club had secured the site early on - an old army barracks area. Things then got going in 2014, when applications were submitted and initial contracts awarded. The groundbreaking ceremony took place in October 2015. The work is on schedule.

In addition to the large cafeteria, where the young athletes will be provided with selected meals according to their nutrition plan on a daily basis, there is also a public restaurant on the grounds. Parents wishing to visit their children in the youth squad will not have access to the academy. They can dine in the restaurant. The restaurant will also serve spectators and guests attending the games.

The refrigeration system needed to store fruit, vegetables, dairy and meat products safely and reliably at a constant temperature in the appropriate cold stores was designed by Billinger engineering consultants. It was installed by K.E.D., Kälte- und Klimatechnik GmbH. K.E.D. fitted Kelvion evaporators of the Küba brand only. For good reason: "Kelvion is still a relatively young brand, so the Küba product brand as one of the most highly regarded manufacturers on the market helps with its unbeatable quality“, says Michael Kraus. Whenever things get a bit more intricate and specialized and the requirements of refrigeration technology are particularly great, the refrigeration engineer installs Kelvion air coolers. "We simply know that it will ultimately operate properly“, comments Kraus. – Although this time, the technical requirements were relatively low.

The cafeteria in the academy has five cold rooms between 3.1 and 3.9 square meters in size - just enough to store the daily food requirements. "We deliberately installed two different sizes of the Küba junior DFBE model with electric defrost. The Küba junior simply has the advantage in a small space of being able to completely hinge down the drip tray in order to carry out the pipework without any difficulty. In addition, the ceiling-mounted air cooler is compact and has a low installation height. This simply saves space," says Kraus. 

In addition to the cold rooms, which are kept at a constant 4°C, there is also a 6 square deep freeze room. Here, a  Küba junior DFBE071D ceiling-mounted air cooler ensures constant degrees below zero. In front of this is a 6 square meter anteroom, where a Küba junior DFBE033 E has been installed.

In the clubhouse, which also contains the public restaurant, the cold rooms are of a similar size. Here, the food products, which are prepared on a daily basis, are also refrigerated exclusively by Küba junior evaporators from Kelvion. For reasons of cost, K.E.D. did not install a CO2-multi-compressor-centralized refrigeration system but, rather, opted for R134 as the refrigerant and R407F for the freezing area. 

As none of the buildings has dedicated machine rooms, Kraus had to install the centralized refrigeration components outside and position them on the roofs of the low-rise buildings - surrounded by sound attenuation housings. The customers of K.E.D. Kälte- und Klimatechnik GmbH, based in Bischofsmais, mainly include large chain stores like Penny and Rewe, as well as butcheries, bakeries, restaurants and the pharmaceutical industry. The company was founded in 2005 and has grown constantly since then. Sales doubled to €10 million in the first five years alone. The company now employs 80 employees - including 18 field service engineers and 4 refrigeration engineers to develop individual and customized refrigeration systems.