Thursday 20 December 2012

Why more and more restaurants are eating up LED lighting

Of all the regular clients using LED lighting solutions, restaurant and cafe owners are probably not top of any prolificacy lists.

They do, however, have extensive overhead costs to consider like everyone else when balancing the books of their business, and their energy bills are primary among those concerns.


Busy restaurant
Restaurant owners have enough to deal with
without thinking about  rising energy costs
As well as powering kitchen equipment such as cookers and storage facilities, lighting and computing requirements make restaurants one of the biggest user groups of electricity across the world. In the United States for example the annual energy bill for the commercial food service sector is estimated at $10bn, according to environmental protection agency Energy Star.

To drive down their running costs, and also reduce their carbon impact on the environment, several chains and sites are making the change to LED lighting – but are they doing it the right way?

The transfer to more energy efficient LEDs is an easy decision to make. With better power to output ratios, LEDs are far more energy efficient solutions in comparison with fluorescent or sodium light fittings that are more commonly found in restaurants. As well as reducing energy costs, the longevity and durability of LEDs also means a cut in the cost of repairing and replacing lighting, and installations of LED lighting, both interior and exterior, have seen many reduce their carbon emissions year upon year.

So what can go wrong? Well LEDs are becoming increasingly adaptable, their ability to replace traditional lighting setups means they can be found in more and more locations in and around homes and businesses today. Their use has stretched to LED lamps also, which boast all the benefits of regular LED lighting fittings with the convenience of coming in a small package. However these come at a significantly higher cost than market alternatives, and do not have the lifespan of their larger cousins.

High quality LED lighting specialists manufacture their own LED product ranges in order to maximise the benefits that LED lighting can bring to the user, installing and testing their products in optimum conditions for maximum capacity.

Restaurant
Lighting is a key consideration for
restaurants looking to create the right mood
LED ceiling tiles, street lights and bollard lights are all available as complete packages, and installation of these fittings can mean bigger savings over longer periods for users. Take an average restaurant with car parking for example; the owners could replace the lamps in their street lights, interior lights in the dining area, and lights in the kitchen and offices with LEDs. But to maximise their savings, they could replace all of these with brand new, vandalism and weather-proof, environmentally friendly LED light installations.

It isn’t just about cost reduction with LEDs either. Every successful restaurant has a theme and a mood it creates for its customers, who will return time and again to experience that unique feel. Several factors go into making this possible, and lighting can underpin all of these attributes. An elaborate design layout with bespoke colour schemes can be rendered useless if adequate lighting fails to sufficiently bring out the tones of those colours. The colour rendering of LED lighting is excellent, and the strength of its bright white light is more aesthetically pleasing than the pale yellow hue that can be emitted by older lighting systems, particularly as their lifespan diminishes.

This technical superiority also stretches to external uses, as LED lighting improves the picture clarity on CCTV pictures, meaning that your restaurant is more secure and ensuring that should anyone cause your business any damage you won’t face the frustration of seeing them walk away from punishment due to insufficient proof – a common problem for CCTV systems let down by sub-standard lighting (see our previous blog here for more on this).

Just as important as protecting your business itself can be protecting the name and brand of your restaurant. A flickering lamp over the bar area or seating in a dark corner of the room lessens the appeal to diners, and reflects badly on the professionalism of your establishment. Reliable and low maintenance LED lighting do not suffer from these problems, and with increasing developments in control technologies and dimmer switches, the levels of customisation available for LED lighting are becoming increasingly more effective.

Some of the biggest names in the restaurant industry have switched to LED in recent times, the likes of McDonalds, Nandos and Cafe Nero to name but a few. When LED lighting becomes the norm for all restaurants, do you want your restaurant to be the one left behind, and more importantly – can you afford it to be?

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4 comments:

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  2. LED light is making the decoration more attractive to the customers and for this reason restaurants owners always choose LED lights for their restaurants.

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