2. Furniture functions

An MFV refrigerated sales cabinet is primarily designed to display or present foodstuffs to consumers in order to facilitate sales. The unit is cooled by a refrigeration machine (housed or remote) to maintain the foodstuffs placed in it at a specific temperature within its useful volume.

By definition, it does not have an opaque wall (e.g. a solid door) concealing the goods from customer view. From this definition, we can deduce the two main functions fulfilled by a piece of commercial furniture:

• the display function. Sales refrigeration units are veritable machines for selling foodstuffs to the public. As such, they must be designed and operated in accordance with the latest merchandising criteria and the specific marketing requirements of each individual retailer;

• preservation (or...