Fresh supermarket equipment technician - the walk-in cooler failure SOP: save the product first, fix the machine second, triage by measured temperature

You are the cold-chain emergency advisor for a fresh-food supermarket.
Write a "Walk-in / display cooler sudden failure" SOP for our store,
to be posted at the electrical panel and the duty room. The first
person on scene may be a cashier or duty clerk - not an electrician -
so the SOP must be executable by non-maintenance staff.

Scenario: night or early morning, the walk-in unit or a cooler stops
cooling (possible causes: tripped breaker, compressor failure,
refrigerant leak - but the on-duty person does not need to diagnose).

Write the SOP along the post-discovery timeline. Every step states:
who acts / what they do / how they know it's done.

[0-10 minutes]
- Scope check: one cooler, or the whole line including the walk-in
  (temperature displays and case lights)? This decides who gets
  called
- If it's a tripped breaker: one reset attempt is allowed. If it
  trips again - no more resets, no opening panels to check wiring.
  Write down which circuit tripped and move on
- Two phone calls: the maintenance contractor's 24-hour line, and
  the store manager. The SOP leaves blank fill-in lines for the
  numbers, and names the manager as backup: if either call goes
  unanswered for 5 minutes, call the other

[10-30 minutes] Product before machine
- From this point the on-duty person's only job is protecting
  product; the machine belongs to the contractor
- Measure temperature with a probe thermometer, never trust the
  case display: record actual walk-in temp, each cooler's actual
  temp, and ambient
- Triage the load by measured temperature + category (the store
  fills in the threshold lines from each product's storage label;
  the SOP leaves [move-out temperature lines] blank):
  Tier 1: chilled ready-to-eat (deli, tofu, yogurt) - move first
  Tier 2: frozen - decided by "surface starting to soften"
  Tier 3: leafy greens and cut produce - move if capacity allows
  Tier 4: packaged beverages and shelf-stable goods - last, or skip
- Destinations are written in advance (a healthy cooler, a sister
  store, insulated boxes with ice). Every moved batch gets one
  logged line: item, quantity, from where to where

[30 minutes to recovery]
- Measure and log temperature every 30 minutes, fixed or not
- Warmed product rules: frozen goods that thawed and refroze never
  go back on sale - straight to the shrink process. No discretion
  on this line
- Recovery confirmation: product moves back only after temperature
  holds at setpoint for [stability window]

[Logging] runs through the whole event
- Failure start/end times, the 30-minute temperature log, the
  transfer list, timestamps of calls to contractor and manager.
  This page doubles as the insurance record and the shrink-approval
  attachment, so design the format to be readable by a third party
  afterward

Output format:
- One-page wall version: checkbox steps, blank contact lines,
  blank temperature lines
- One explanation page: why product before machine, why exactly one
  breaker reset (3 sentences each, for store training)

Do not:
- Write "generally safe for X hours" - the real window depends on
  residual cold, door openings, and ambient temperature. The only
  reliable standard is the measured temperature line
- Have the on-duty person do anything involving opening the unit,
  refrigerant, or circuit testing
- Make "call the manufacturer" a step - manufacturer response is
  measured in days; this SOP governs the first two hours

Why it is written this way

The big loss in a night cooler failure is almost never the machine - it's the load inside it. Yet the on-duty person's first instinct is to fight the machine: reset the breaker again, open the panel, hunt for a manual, while the box temperature sails past what the product can survive. The timeline hard-codes "hands off the equipment after minute 10," converting the staffer from amateur repairman into product-rescue lead.

"One reset attempt only" is standard electrician's sense, but it has to be a dead rule in writing: repeated resets into a short or ground fault are testing safety with luck. Spelling out "if it trips again, stop" gives a non-electrician permission to stand down.

The triage order follows one principle: whoever's damage is irreversible goes first. Thawed-then-refrozen product is a food safety issue and is banned from resale outright; greens warming is pure shrink but discountable; packaged drinks go last or not at all. Untiered evacuation wastes the available hands moving bottled water while the deli spoils in plain sight.

Leaving every temperature line blank for the store to fill is the least template-like choice in this SOP - and the most important. Generic SOPs love "chilled goods hold 4 hours" numbers, but the real window depends on residual cold, door openings, and ambient temperature; a borrowed number is wrong the first night it matters. Measured temperature as the only standard, plus a 30-minute logging cadence, makes the SOP valid in any store.

The log format is designed "for a third party" because a failure event settles two accounts afterward: the insurer wants the sequence of events, the shrink approval wants quantities. Skip the writing during the event and neither account can be reconstructed.