Up here our labor rates are really low due to the competition.
The big guys trip over each other to look after the big retailers basically for cost.
Then on top of that the biggest grocer in Canada has had their own refrigeration service company for years. And another big coop bought a service company a couple years ago.
Tons of competition and low rates. But that equals sub par techs.
So those of us that get it right the first time are always busy and making money.

 

Up here our labor rates are really low due to the competition.
The big guys trip over each other to look after the big retailers basically for cost.
Then on top of that the biggest grocer in Canada has had their own refrigeration service company for years. And another big coop bought a service company a couple years ago.
Tons of competition and low rates. But that equals sub par techs.
So those of us that get it right the first time are always busy and making money.

 

It’s been said that two of the lowest margin businesses are Supermarkets and HVACR Service. I doN’T if that’s true.
Where I’m at now, there’s several Resi shops doing more than 100 Techs and over $50M/Yr. I know that’s AC, but is the R that much worse? There’s some Resi Techs out here, some people may call them “sales techs”, making $200K/Yr. A Com Refrig Tech would have to be top-level and work 4,000 Hrs to make the same.


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Hey, I also am up in Canada and I know our rates with Safeway are some of the lowest. Example were around $90/hr an hour where most commercial HVAC contractors are $150/hr. Train charges around $220/hr but they mostly deal with chillers. The only thing that has worse rates I’m aware of is the guys that do the HVAC for Safeway, they charge around $60/hr. For some reference 80% of all the companies up here are union and union rate is $62/hr, so really there’s no money in the labour at all, just parts and double time service for after hours call outs (which are frequent)

 

So Safeway in Canada uses different providers for Refrigeration and for AC? The rates you listed are crazy low.
Trane and any other Chiller OEM are going to be the highest per hour everywhere.
There are NO ComRef Union contractors in Arizona. One ComRef shop from Chicago, who purchases shops nationwide, opened up their first non-union cold-start here in AZ. All of their other cold-starts had been Union.


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Yes, so Coral has a national contract for Safeway HVAC and for some reason they bend over for it. They don’t seem to ever get any repairs out of it so I’m not sure why. Grocery refrigeration is a bit more niche so they have regional contracts. Costco, Safeway (Sobeys), Save on Foods, Wal-Mart, Whole Foods and a few others have three companies to choose from in my market that are all union. Whenever there is negotiations it’s always the food store employers that are trying to lower wages because the margins are so tight. Loblaws owns their own Refrigeration company that only services their stores (Display Fixtures) and they have a separate union contract that’s very similar). Every company other than Safeway (Sobeys) Has the refrigeration and the HVAC done by the same contractor.

 

I’ve been engaging more Refrig Techs recently about this topic. One of the CBRE/Walmart Techs says there’s about 30 Walmart/Sam’s stores in SE Arizona. SE AZ is hubbed out of Tucson for them. Very little Walmart/Sam’s work is given out to contractors by CBRE.


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We’ve lost a lot of rack work at chains to a competitor who is becoming a conglomerate with satellite shops all over based 150 miles away. They can have the wally worlds though. Pain in the ass red tape like all chains but they’re the biggest. Big difference is we or at least me personally never speak I’ll of anyone or company even if I’m thinking it. Customer may bring up so and so company and I always follow with “they’ll take good care of you they’re good”, sounds counter productive but is more professional in my opinion,

 

CoolSys/Source, Hussmann, Hillphoenix, and TAG/ProTec are the players here. Climate Pros made an investment, but I’m NOT sure of the results. There’s a few others, but they seem to focus on LC Refrig or SE Asian or Hispanic/Mexican supermarkets.
Even if there were 1,000 total supermarkets in the state, with Wally being exclusive to CBRE, and Kroger being In-House, and Bashas’ expanding their In-House - how many ComRef Techs can that sustain?

 

Safeway works as a pennant of Albertsons Companies, one of the biggest food and medication retailers in the United States. With both a solid nearby presence and public scale, the organization works stores across 35 states and the District of Columbia under 20 notable standards.