New York Grocer DeCicco & Sons to Open Ninth CO₂ Store and First R290 Store

DeCicco & Sons, which operates 11 high-end supermarkets in Westchester and Putnam counties, New York (north of New York City), is opening in May its first Connecticut store in Greenwich, its seventh new store to be equipped with transcritical CO₂ (R744) refrigeration in the past decade, along with two converted stores.

Only three stores remain without CO₂, and those will be converted over the next one to two years, said John DeCicco Jr., CEO of the chain, founded in 1973 and based in Pelham, New York.

All CO₂ stores use racks from OEM Hillphoenix, based in Conyers, Georgia, and are certified at the platinum level by GreenChill, a voluntary program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The chain’s first CO₂ system was installed in 2015 in a store in Larchmont, New York, which uses from 7 to 37% less electricity than a similar-sized store using a traditional HFC (R404A) system.

This year DeCicco & Sons will also be opening its first 10,000ft² (929m²) store (its other stores are at least 20,000ft²/1,858m²) under the Piccolino by DeCicco & Sons banner. Here it will test its first propane (R290) water-loop refrigeration system, from the Schweitzer Group, an Italian manufacturer; walk-in rooms will use CO₂ refrigeration. “I wanted to be able to change cases and change layouts more freely, and I figured that that was a better fit with the water-loop system,” said DeCicco.

 The Greenwich store’s transcritical CO₂ system will employ a “boosted” direct CO₂ heat reclaim and subcooling/dehumidification system provided by Canadian HVAC OEM Flō Energy Solutions. DeCicco’s & Sons first installed this system in its year-old CO₂ store in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Its other CO₂ stores use a passive heat reclaim system, which taps hot CO₂ gas to heat a secondary glycol fluid.

DeCicco cites numerous benefits of natural refrigerant-based technology. “It’s the right decision for the environment, and, generally, it’s appreciated by customers. It’s the future for sure.” He also recognizes that natural refrigerants “future-proof” DeCicco & Sons against current and future regulations, especially in New York State, which has enacted some of the most ambitious HFC regulations in the U.S. The retailer promotes its environmental initiatives to shoppers in store signage and on its website.

But finding adequately skilled technicians is still a challenge, noted DeCicco. “I think the CO₂ system is just as much a computer as it is a machine. And trying to find mechanics that have the ability to both use a computer and use their hands is very hard to come by.”

Tour of Sleepy Hollow store

DeCicco & Sons will be hosting a free site visit at its Sleepy Hollow store on June 1 for retailers, contractors and engineers-of-record attending the ATMOsphere (ATMO) America conference, which will take place June 2–3 in nearby Tarrytown, New York. To register for the tour, click here. DeCicco will discuss the store’s transcritcal CO₂ system and heat reclaim/subooling/dehumidification technology in a case-study session at the conference.

The Sleepy Hollow store, 30,000ft² (2,787m²) on the first floor and 20,000ft² on the second, employs a CO₂ rack with a capacity of 155,500BTUH (12.9TR/45.4kW) for low-temperature cases and 738,100BTUH (61.5TR/216.3kW) for medium-temperature cases. The rack, bathed in colored light, is on display for visitors on the second floor of the store.

This store also features a restaurant on the second level, electronic pricing labels from Hussmann on its Hillphoenix cases and, like all of DeCicco’s CO₂ stores, adiabatic gas coolers. The store also has self-contained R290-based produce cases from JSI, a Maine-based producer of refrigerated display cases. All DeCicco & Sons stores have back-up generators, and all CO₂ stores stockpile full refrigerant charges and all components, including extra compressors. CO₂ stores experience about one significant leak per year, and those systems “are back within hours,” said DeCicco.

 The Sleepy Hollow store’s direct CO₂ heat reclaim system diverts hot CO₂ gas from rack compressors to the heat reclaim coil, which produces hot air for space heating of the store in the winter, spring and fall, as well as domestic hot water year-round.

The direct system enables the CO₂ rack to modulate compressor head pressure in response to a heating demand signal from the heat reclaim coil. The coil resides inside a DOAS+ HVAC unit using Adaptive Multi-Path Technology. Flō has found that its boosted coil can recover three times more waste heat from a supermarket’s refrigeration system than a standard passive heat reclaim approach. For every kilowatt of extra energy, applied to the compressors, six kilowatts of heat is generated, for a COP of six, noted Peter Reist, Director of Product and Sales Strategy for Flō. “The Flō unit amplifies the heat reclaim,” said DeCicco.

During the summer the Flō system delivers store dehumidification and subcooling for the refrigeration system, leveraging cold air released by cases and captured in return air. DeCicco & Sons has employed a different kind of subcooling technology – a geothermal precooling system – at its CO₂ store in Harrison, New York. The geothermal system employs five 500ft (152m) wells, piped to a heat exchanger on the return line from an adiabatic gas cooler. The wells were constructed in the area around the store.

“[Natural refrigerants are] the right decision for the environment, and, generally, it’s appreciated by customers. It’s the future for sure.”

John DeCicco Jr., CEO of DeCicco & Sons

While conventional glycol-based CO₂ heat reclaim covers 30–40% of the heating load in DeCicco & Sons stores, the direct reclaim system accounts for about 60%, said DeCicco. (A conventional CO₂ store in Somers, which uses radiant floor heating, also covers 60% of the heating load.) He will provide data on energy consumption and savings at the Sleepy Hollow store in a case-study presentation with Flō at ATMO America 2026 in June.

Considering all of the aspects of a CO₂ refrigeration system, including heat reclaim and better controls, “makes it, in the long run, less expensive to operate,” said DeCicco. He puts the payback period for the premium on a transcritical CO₂ system at one to three years.

Since installing CO₂ systems and other energy-saving technologies, DeCicco & Sons has reduced overall energy consumption in its stores by 40%, said DeCicco. He has rooftop solar panels in three stores and plans to put them on other stores where space allows.

DeCicco is on the board of the FMI (Food Industry Association) and is current chairman of the Food Industry Alliance of New York State. He frequently speaks to local environmental groups and recently hosted all of the village administrators in Westchester County. Local supermarket operators, including chains and independents come to his stores to learn about CO₂ refrigeration. In 2023, Westchester Magazine named DeCicco one of the top CEOs and business leaders in the county.