Those of you in the supermarket industry who looked at some or all of the several-hundred-page AIM Act Emissions Reduction and Reclamation Regulation may have seen the section on fire suppression and thought, “Thank God I can skip that!”
Well … think again.
If your company owns and/or operates a bakery, perhaps because you are particularly proud of your own-brand conchas, you probably also have special fire/explosion protection equipment. And if that equipment is more than a few years old, the chances are high that the equipment uses an HFC that is regulated under the AIM Act.
The need for this equipment has nothing to do with conchas specifically. I just really like that word. And I will never forget them, because it took me a year after moving to Texas to figure out that they weren’t kaiser rolls that Texans decided to color pink and blue because it made the sandwiches better. In my defense: 1) I grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch country; 2) they don’t have kaiser rolls in Texas; 3) if they did have kaiser rolls in Texas grocery stores, they’d be located exactly where the conchas are.
A Pink Concha
A (not pink) kaiser roll
But I digress.
Why would you need explosion protection equipment in a bakery? Because if all that powdered sugar and flour dust in the air is ignited, this happens: https://www.csb.gov/imperial-sugar-company-dust-explosion-and-fire/
So if your company owns a bakery, you probably DO have to worry about §84.110 of the AIM Act Emissions Reduction and Reclamation Rule.
Once you start checking into this entire area, you may realize that you have fire protection systems that use regulated substances in other areas too, like in your data centers. You certainly don’t want to drop a ton of water on top of all that expensive and essential equipment and ruin it.
Yes, I can imagine what you’re thinking right now. This probably opened up a whole can of worms. I can hear your sighs all the way in Idaho.
For those of you who don’t know what a concha is, here you go https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/how-to-make-conchas/
The information in this article is not intended as legal advice or as a substitute for the particularized advice of your own counsel. Anyone seeking specific legal advice or assistance should retain an attorney.
