Hoshizaki moves into multidecks amid soaring UK sales

Refrigerator specialist Hoshizaki is to launch its first range of multidecks, due to be available this June.

Delegates at last week’s Hoshizaki Dealer Conference, held at the Telford Hotel, Spa & Golf Resort, were told that the Advance multideck series will be “competitively priced” with a “good specification” that’s aesthetically pleasing for front of house and grab and go use.

Crafted from 304 grade stainless steel throughout, all models will be available with end panels in either black, half glass or solid finishes.

The range will initially comprise four sizes: 100, 120, 150 or 180cm wide – all at 75cm deep and 200cm tall.

The display refrigerators can be supplied with doors or as open fronted models with night blinds, which if used all night, could save 28% of energy, Hoshizaki estimates.

Plus honeycomb air guides should generate steady, homogenous airflow to deliver stable, even temperatures across the display area.

All of the self-serve refrigerators make use of tempered glass, which is designed to be difficult to break.

Operators can change the shelving angles according to requirements, and each shelf is reinforced to handle frequent loading of up to 50-80kg, the equivalent of 1,110-1,294 double-stacked 330ml cans.

Advance multidecks will be sold with a two-year parts and labour warranty.

The launch comes as Japan-headquartered Hoshizaki’s total global sales hit £2.5b, with the UK one of its fastest growing markets. Between 2024 and 2025, the UK ice machine business grew from 4,900 to 5,500 units sold. UK refrigerator business also rose rapidly over the same period, from 4,600 to 5,100 units.

Keisuke Yamanaka, managing director at Hoshizaki Europe, told the conference that when the refrigeration specialist closed the former Gram factory in Denmark in 2022, transferring production to Turkey and India, it implemented a Japanese engineering and quality management system that saw defect rates drop from between 7-10% to 2-3%.

“These significant improvements show how standardised processes and strong capabilities can transform product performance,” he said.

The refrigeration specialist is also working on its after-sales service. Having already cut its warranty ratio (the number of failures compared to average sales) on reach-in refrigerators from 9.14% in 2021 to 4.41% last year, Hoshizaki is targeting a further 40% reduction across all product segments by 2029.

John Churan, production control director for Hoshizaki Europe, said that the firm aims to keep warranty calls low with 13 quality checks that are audited daily through its Telford ice-maker factory. “We start with building in quality through every single process, not just the gatekeeper at the end of the line,” he said. “We create actions based on the consistency, occurrence and severity of the problem.”

The latest developments follow last year’s launch of IM Gen 2 ice-makers as well as two blast chiller and freezer ranges which slot into its Premier and Advance families.