Co-op Grocery

A major food retailer in Calgary, Co-Op, called on Senso Lighting to design a lighting solution for their produce department. The retailer required a solution that would provide greater energy efficiency and high-quality light on a track system with dimming capability. They have a building control system for all of their lights and they wanted to make sure, if needed, they could dim the lighting.

Leading the lighting project was Rolf Hurbin, President of Senso Lighting, an accomplished lighting professional. In lighting produce, it is important to light properly the wide variety of colors. If using 3,500K LED modules the red is lost, with 2,700K there is too much red and all of the whites and greens are lost, but with 3,000K LED modules there is a good mix of all the colors that can be seen. At a tradeshow earlier in the year, Hurbin learned that LED module manufacturer, Xicato, had invented a new form of light that has a higher color gamut index over most other light sources. This new light, called the Vibrant Series, enables the viewers to see colors, hues and tones, particularly for whites, reds and blues, that are real, but simply aren’t visible under halogen light. Hurbin determined that the new technology in Xicato’s Vibrant Series LED module would provide the best overall look enabling the retailer with a wide range of good color for its merchandise and to meet all of their lighting requirements.

Senso compiled the specs from the retailer and created a LED lighting mock-up. The specs included lighting at 3,500K for the fish, 2,700K for the bread and 3,000K for meat and produce. Senso displayed all the products with the original specs, and then compared all of them with its track-system luminaire, which included a 3,000K Xicato Vibrant Series LED module. After all of the comparisons, the unanimous feedback was that the Xicato Vibrant LED module made everything look much fresher than the other LED modules. The mock-up clearly showed that the Xicato Vibrant LED module does the best job not just for the produce, but for all of the merchandise in the store. While Senso was contracted to light only the fresh produce, the decision was made that all of the retailer’s future lighting projects will use the Xicato Vibrant LED module.

After the lighting installation was complete and due to the positive feedback from its customers and the retailer, Senso Lighting was hired to light the bread, fish, meat, and the rest of their merchandise at that store location with the Xicato Vibrant LED module. Also, because the retailer was very happy with the vibrant color and the lighting effect at that location, Senso Lighting is now re-lighting essentially all of its over 20 store locations.