34 | T T to page 36 Active Refrigeration - Christchurch: 25th Anniversary T T Kim Newth Celebrating 25 years of loyalty and growth Company founders Craig Duff, left, and Graeme Green - committed to growing a strong team and a positive workplace culture. “While we operate nationwide, we place a lot of importance on thinking locally and looking after our people....” REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Active Refrigeration proudly celebrated its 25th anniversary with staff, clients and industry partners at a special function in February, held at Te Whakairinga Mutu Air Force Museum of New Zealand in Wigram – a night to remember for those that have been part of the company’s 25-year journey of innovation, dedication and growth. From humble beginnings in Christchurch, Active Refrigeration has flourished through the years to become a leader in innovative, energy-efficient and reliable cooling solutions. Active Refrigeration is a major partner for some of New Zealand’s key export industries that rely on being able to keep product cold while being processed and prepared for shipping. The team works with leading primary producers, from dairy companies, meat and poultry processors to fruit producers, breweries, wineries, and food service enterprises. The company’s tailored solutions are designed to provide enhanced refrigeration efficiency while reducing costs. Active Refrigeration also provides sustainable solutions for cold storage, blast freezing and hypoxic fire prevention. Its nationwide team is highly skilled in system engineering and design, and is strongly focused on sustainable, natural refrigerant solutions. Customers enjoy high-quality and cost- effective refrigeration and air-conditioning service support, 24/7 nationwide. A real point of difference for Active Refrigeration is that it’s both a design and installation specialist, with the in-house capabilities to deliver unique, fit-for-purpose plant installations, as well as retrofit designs. Underlining its commitment to best practice, Active Refrigeration holds ISO certifications in Health & Safety (ISO 45001) and Environmental Management Systems (ISO 14001). From the outset, founders Craig Duff and Graeme Green were committed to growing a strong team and a positive workplace culture, fostering engineering excellence and dedicated to reliable, quality service. “Craig and Graeme started out with two tradesmen and, from day one, they also employed an apprentice,” observes service manager Brent Long, who began his own journey with Active Refrigeration just a year after it started. “Training apprentices is pivotal to our business, not only because we want to have the best engineers, it’s also about what’s best for the future of our trade and industry. “We’ve always had an apprentice every year, and over the last decade it has been two apprentices a year. In Christchurch, we’d have between eight and 10 apprentices at any one time. It’s a significant number for the region.” Having started out as a small family business, Active Refrigeration in Christchurch now employs a team of 55, but the ‘keeping it local’ culture remains as strong as ever. This same ethos has allowed growth over the years to include 17 branch locations and a team of 280 people throughout New Zealand. Brent says many of the customers that were there at the start are still valued customers today, and it’s the same for their local staff, who trained with the company and stayed on to forge careers. “While we operate nationwide, we place a lot of importance on thinking locally and looking after our people. We pride ourselves on our staff retention record – in fact, our very first apprentice is still with us today. Quite a few of our apprentices do leave to go travelling, but we’re proud to say many come back to us later. For us, having consistency with our people is really important. “We also believe in giving back to our local communities through sponsorships and charitable support and many of these relationships are long-standing too.”
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