Accelerate America magazine honored five IIAR member companies for their work in advancing natural refrigerant adoption in North America as part of its second annual awards program. The awards were presented in June during the ATMOsphere America conference in San Diego

The magazine, which is produced by shecco America, presented best-insector awards to: Whole Foods Market in the food retail, category; United States Cold Storage in the industrial category; and Nestlé in the foodservice category. Hillphoenix received the Innovation of the Year award for its AdvansorFlex transcritical carbon dioxide modular refrigeration system designed for small-format stores.

“Congratulations are in order for all of these companies,” said IIAR President Dave Rule. “Their leadership in this industry — developing and engineering new methods of using natural refrigerants to replace HFCs — and their support of IIAR and Atmosphere America is having a real, positive environmental impact.”

Whole Foods has been a leader in natural refrigerants, including CO2 and ammonia. The food retailer has transcritical CO2 systems at several locations and is testing ammonia-CO2 . The company says its Whole Foods Market store in Santa Clara, California, has the most environmentallyadvanced grocery retail refrigeration system in the U.S.

US Cold Storage provides temperature-controlled warehousing and transportation at 39 facilities across the country. In 2015, US Cold Storage installed its first ammonia-carbon dioxide refrigeration system and one of the first in the industrial refrigeration industry.

Hillphoenix, a provider of environmentally sustainable refrigeration systems, has created the AdvansorFlex CO2 refrigeration system as part of its evolving Advansor CO2 platform. The latest offering is designed to bring HFC-free refrigeration to small and medium-sized retailers.

The Person of the Year award was presented to Paul Anderson, senior director of engineering for Target, which has installed propane stand-alone display cases in more than 580 stores. “Paul Anderson has been a leader at Target, first in making CO2 cascade systems a prototype for new stores, and then by installing propane cases on a national scale.”

Anderson has been with Target since 2007. He also held positions with Eaton Corp., Taylor Industries and John Deer.