As the grocery industry strives to compete with superstore moguls like Wal-Mart and K-Mart, supermarkets are changing their image and their facilities to attract more customers. Maintaining and expanding their customer base means keeping in tune with market demands for longer hours and more products in stock along with better quality and lower prices. As a result, supermarkets are no longer just the place where customers run in for produce and staple items. They are now a one-stop shopping source, including a florist, pharmacist, restaurant, and video store, among others. Some stores even provide child care while mom or dad shops. With the larger size store that results, store lighting becomes a particularly important element in making shopping pleasant and easy for the customer.

The Facts of Light

In a store where customers quickly find the items they need and where well-planned, attractive displays encourage them to browse and buy, they leave satisfied and are more likely to return. Store lighting plays a significant role in assisting shoppers to locate items on shelves and in highlighting the important features of these items. Lights that are bright with an appealing color are more likely to entice customers inside than those that create a gloomy atmsophere.

Ceiling height is a particularly important factor in establishing the correct lighting scheme. Most stores have high and low bay areas. Lights within the high bay areas, usually over the main store aisles, must adequately illuminate the area and the products, particularly those at the bottom of shelves.

The contribution of natural light must also be considered in a store lighting design, particularly in atrium and checkout areas where store windows are likely to be located. If there are skylights, these too need to be factored in to the lighting plan. A lighting installation that adjusts for night and daytime light not only aids in establishing an effective ambient environment but is also cost effective.

An important part of the customer-friendly environment supermarkets need is a consistent decorative scheme throughout the main part of the store. Special lighting effects can then be developed to create a distinctive milieu for the various boutique areas. Spotlighting is an option that can be used for a look of elegance or to create shadows and color effects.

To achieve the right supermarket atmosphere, many grocery stores are discovering the advantages of metal halide lighting, a compact source of white light that can fulfill all of these needs. This is particularly so in high open ceiling applications typical in large retail spaces.

Better, Brighter Light

Several lighting schemes can be effectively applied within a large supermarket using metal halide lighting. Metal halide lamps are long-lived compact light sources that are high in brightness unlike fluorescent lighting that are low brightness light sources with relatively large surface areas. Higher wattage fluorescent lamps are simply too large to be practical, and they are not suitable for applications where directed light is needed. Metal halide lamps radiate much more light per square centimeter of surface area than do fluorescents. A fluorescent lamp at the highest output has only the total lumen output of a 175 watt metal halide lamp. Metal halide is best suited to those applications that require higher foot-candles and where the lamps are more than 8 - 10 feet from the work surface such as the high bay areas that are typical in supermarkets.

Because of their compact size and high light output, metal halide lamps reduce the number of fixtures required and provide greater flexibility in fixture placement. They lend themselves well to applications, such as supermarkets, where the light needs to be directed or controlled. This ability to direct light provides better light where it is needed and gives rise to more dramatic lighting effects.

An additional major drawback to fluorescents for supermarket lighting is the temperature sensitivity of the lamps with regard to light output. The fluorescent lamp is designed to perform optimally at around 70ºF (21C) and will experience measurable decline in efficacy on either side of this optimum. Metal halide lamps are relatively unaffected by low ambient temperatures. This is an important advantage for grocery store installations where there are meats and frozen foods stored in low temperature cabinets.

Metal halide lighting differs from High Pressure Sodium (HPS) sources in the color and quality of light delivered. Metal halide produces a high efficiency white light with a close simulation to daylight. The lamps deliver white light in the range of 2700 to 5500 Kelvin with typical CRIs in the mid-60s to mid-70s. Some lamp chemistries even obtain CRIs in the 80s. In contrast, high pressure sodium lamps yield yellow lighting (2200K) and have a very poor color rendering index of 22. This difference is particularly significant in a supermarket where lighting must attractively reveal the true colors of merchandise and produce.

Bringing Creativity to Light

Because of their energy efficiency and long life, metal halide lamps reduce operating costs and provide additional savings because lamps are replaced less often. Metal halide lamps with new pulse start lighting technology can provide the solution for the forward-looking grocery store of today.

The latest and most innovative metal halide technology offered exclusively by Venture Lighting is the Uni-FormÒ pulse start system, a family of lamps, ballasts and controls in a wide range of wattages that are designed together as a system to provide unmatched performance. These next-generation lamps differ from older metal halide technology because they incorporate Venture’s unique formed body arc tube design. The exclusive Uni-Form formed body arc tube is a compact light source sculpted to follow the physical shape of the arc itself. The precise geometry of this unique arc tube, accurately reproducible from lamp to lamp, produces a metal halide lamp of greater efficiency, improved color uniformity, longer life, and faster warm-up/hot restrike times than those with the older, standard pinched body arc tube technology.

More Light Choices

The compact design of the Uni-Form formed body arc tube easily allows the introduction of a protective shroud inside the envelope. The strong quartz shroud around the arc tube provides containment of hot arc particles should a non-passive lamp failure occur, eliminating the need to use a cover lense with the fixture for safety reasons. Supermarkets can use these lamps in open fixture designs and be confident that the safety of their customers is assured. Venture’s open fixture rated Uni-Form pulse start lamps are available from 50 through 450 watts.

Without cover lenses, the problem of reduced lighting efficiency due to dirt accumulation on the lens is eliminated along with potentially higher operating temperatures created with protective fixture enclosures. Open fixture designs result in greater choice of fixtures, reduced fixture costs, and improved maintained lumens. Moreover, open rated lamps can be operated continuously with no weekly shut-down required. This benefit can be an important one for many supermarkets that now remain open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day in response to customer demands.

Moreover, the quartz shroud in Venture’s open fixture rated lamp is specially-coated to create the UV ShieldÔ lamp that provides protection against UV emissions. UV light emissions cause fading and damage to plastics and fabrics. UV Shield lamps virtually eliminate yellowing of polycarbonate fixture lenses to ensure extended maximum light output while providing superior white light. UV Shield lamps incorporate Venture’s Uni-Form pulse start technology and are available in wattages from 50 to 450. They may be just the solution supermarkets are seeking to protect their displays against fading.

Venture also designs and manufactures new high-efficiency, reduced crest factor ballasts for the Uni-Form pulse start system. The efficiencies of newer ballast designs combine with the higher, maintained light output of the Uni-Form formed body arc tube to reduce the number of fixtures required. Lamp and component compatibility, is assured because the lamps, ballasts and controls are designed together to provide maximum performance

Venture Lighting now offers the largest selection of Uni-form pulse start lamps, ballasts and controls in the industry. The lamps are available in wattages from 50 through 450 watt in open or enclosed styles; clear or coated versions; 2700K, 3000K and 4000K color temperatures; Color Rendering Index (CRI) options of 65-75. Coupled with Venture’s low current crest factor CWA or 277 volt reactor ballasts, the long life Uni-Form pulse start lamps demonstrate excellent lamp to lamp color consistency. In addition, Venture backs up the Uni-Form pulse start system with the only metal halide system warranty in the industry, the Uni-Form "One Call" Warranty that covers all Uni-Form pulse start components purchased as part of a total system.

For more information regarding Venture’s Designer Color lamps and the Uni-Form pulse start system, Venture Lighting may be contacted at 1-800-437-0111. These are the next- generation lights grocers need to keep the store shining into the 21^st century.