When one thinks about maintaining and cleaning their
walk-in cooler or freezer, they don’t typically think of smells. They tend to gravitate towards door seals, safety latches, drains, coils, and spills. This is completely understandable. Until one senses unpleasant odors, they don’t typically think it a problem.
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Well, like most things in life, unpleasant odors are a situation best tackled with a preemptive strategy. Prevent the problem before it becomes a problem.
Just because your cooler or freezer has never exhibited an unpleasant smell, that doesn’t mean it won’t.
Unpleasant smells require a much more stringent remedy than spilled liquids, clogged drains, or dirty coils. This is especially true if the odors are left over the weekend or unattended for several days. They’ll seep into everything around them, making them much harder to eliminate. When you combine this with the fact that some unpleasant smells could be the results of unseen spills or bacteria growth, the need to take a preemptive approach only becomes so much clearer.
So, how does one take this preemptive approach?
Attacking Unpleasant Odors
Simply maintaining your freezers or cooler’s walls, doors, and floors, and ensuring properly sealing inventory should be enough to keep unwanted smells at bay. That said, life can be tough, and things can easily get overlooked or unattended.
It’s not hard to imagine how a funky, unwanted smell or bacteria growth could easily creep up without your knowledge. If this is the case and you can’t take a preemptive strike, you’ll want to make sure you at least react in the most strategic manner possible. That’s what we’re going to train you to do!
When you encounter an unpleasant odor in your
cooler or freezer, you’ll immediately want to lower the temperature in the regulated area. If there are no visible smells or obvious contributing factors to the smell, you’ll want to next move on to removing and restoring the inventory. Move it to another, cleaner
freezer or cooler if possible.
The goal here is to locate and eliminate the contributing factors. More than likely your smell is coming from some hidden spills or leaking inventory. Continue to remove inventory until you find what you are looking for.
If it has been a while since you’ve given the appliances a good cleaning, you could go ahead and kill two birds with one stone. As you are removing and relocating inventory, you can take the time to clean the newly exposed and accessible areas. Your first reaction might be to seek out the harshest and most abrasive cleaners you can find.
Unfortunately, this would be a major mistake, as they’ll only leave other potentially dangerous odors behind. A simple soapy water solution will be enough to eliminate your odors. Baking soda or white vinegar is acceptable as well if you want to even go a step or two further.
Be sure to thoroughly clean everything. The shelves and storage bins should be thoroughly wiped down. Another crucial thing here is drying time. Although it might be desirable to move your inventory back in immediately after cleaning, you’ll want to wait until the area fully dries. Soggy or dampened cardboard containers are only asking for more problems.
Absorbing Unwanted Odors
It is essential to maintain a clean, organized
freezer or cooler. It’ll make your life so much easier and business more efficient. However, as is usually the case, life can be hectic, and sometimes, you can’t always get to problems right away. Maybe you are looking to take a preemptive approach, as was suggested above. Either way, this is where absorbing materials can come in handy.
There are materials available that can absorb and mask unwanted odors. Note that it will only mask them, not remove them. It might be enough to keep the odors from prying health inspectors or making an unpleasant work area, but those smells will eventually need to be tended to. Charcoal briquettes, baking soda, or even a bowl of your favorite, fresh coffee grounds can absorb unpleasant odors. Remember this is just a band-aid approach.
Learning the sights, sounds, and smells of your
coolers and freezers will only make you a better owner. It’s like owning a car. You usually know right away when something does feel or sound right. Therefore, you’ll be able to tackle the issue immediately and get things back to normal.
