When it comes to staffing in-house refrigeration technicians at Conagra Brands’ 25 food-processing plants in North America that use ammonia (R717) refrigeration, it’s akin to being a high school or college sports coach.
“Your seniors are going to graduate and you’re going to get a new group every year,” said Bob Port, a longtime Technical Services Executive with Conagra at an end-users forum at the 2025 IIAR Natural Refrigeration Conference and Heavy Equipment Expo on March 5 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Conagra has experienced “a huge turnover” in its workforce since the COVID pandemic,” said Port, who detailed how the packaged foods giant has adjusted.
“We’re not going to get the 20- or the 45-year employees anymore,” he said. “How do we bring the next generation up? We need to start thinking about the process in which we bring them along.”
The number of maintenance technicians varies from plant to plant, depending on the extent of the refrigeration. Some Conagra facilities have well over 300,000lbs (136,078kg) of ammonia on site, with three or four ammonia systems.
Port described one scenario at a plant with a “top drawer” maintenance technician. “In fact, every time we’d have a PSM [process safety management] get-together for the whole company, we’d always have him presenting on his SOPs [standard operating procedures]. He was a rock star.” The technician worked with a maintenance manager and a plant engineering manager who were also above average.
In the last year, all three left the company. “Now that plant, when we look at their PSM, the state of their plant, they’ve gone from the top of the pile to the bottom of the pile, and it happened in a year.”
“Key people could leave tomorrow, and we need to have plans in place for how we how do we bridge that gap.”
Bob Port, Conagra
The lesson is that that at any plant “key people could leave tomorrow, and we need to have plans in place for how we bridge that gap,” said Port.
As a temporary measure, Conagra may partner with an outside contractor to hire one of their technicians or maintenance managers to cover a position until a permanent worker can be found. On the other hand, Port, referring to the contractors in his IIAR conference audience, said, “You guys probably had some great technicians, but they retired last year, [and] you’re facing the same turnover problem we’ve got.”
Port acknowledged that Conagra is seeing interest in refrigeration from employees on its production lines who are attracted by the higher salary. “That person already knows our system; they know how our plant works,” he said, though they need to be trained.
Conagra is also seeking outside candidates with some trade school background and possibly some minimal commercial or residential HVAC&R training. “As we build our curriculum, that’s the start audience,” he said.
A core competency?
Port raised the question of whether end users should regard refrigeration maintenance as something outside their core competency that should be outsourced. But he rejected that notion for Conagra. “When you’re in our shoes and you’re one of the largest frozen food processors in North America, what we’re finding is refrigeration actually does need to be a core competency of the organization,” he said.
On the other hand, Port acknowledged there’s a limit to what Conagra’s maintenance department can handle. He doesn’t expect his technicians to learn how to rebuild screw compressors. “We’re trying to find somewhere in the middle where we understand what we’re going to do, and then we understand what we’re going to have somebody else do,” he said.
Port noted that in-house technicians do require a higher skill set than in the past, including knowledge of electronic controls and microprocessors. They also need to be able to troubleshoot more complicated systems that incorporate sustainability or energy management features.
The IIAR-6 standard, which specifies the basic requirements for inspection, testing and maintenance of ammonia systems, is “a wonderful tool” for end users to “figure out what’s the minimum we’ve got to do and what can we outsource,” said Port.
Minimum skills
Port described the minimum skill level maintenance technicians needs to have “before we’ll turn over the keys to the car” and can “run a shift on their own.”
- Handling mechanical integrity (MI) audits and process hazard analysis (PHA) as the underpinning of its PSM and risk management program (RMP) at the plant level. But then the company uses outside firms to help with “RMP submittals and PSM audits.”
- investigating incidents and being qualified to don level C personal protection equipment (PPE), which includes a face mask and chemical-resistant clothing.
- Having a general understanding of how systems such as screw compressors work.
- In daily rounds, understanding whether a system is doing what it’s supposed to do, is in the proper ranges and whether it sounds, feels and smells right.
- In SOPs, being able to start up and shut down a system under normal circumstances, and shutting it down in an emergency.
- Know how to escalate – that is, whom to call when unable to address a problem. Port recommends starting an escalation log for different situations such as when a control system crashes or when ammonia odor is smelled.
- Understanding the hazards of ammonia and plant safety programs.
Port recommended a variety of training resources, including IIAR videos, Refrigerating Engineers & Technicians Association (RETA) classes and manufacturer programs. “We need to take advantage of some of those things and build a curriculum out of them in an orderly fashion.”
