Modern supermarkets are far more than simple merchandise displays; they are complex retail environments whose lighting design directly impacts customer experience and operating costs. Different areas have distinct optical lighting requirements. Achieving optimal supermarket lighting isn't simply about selecting the brightest LED;
it's about strategically applying precise optical design to specific areas. Proper light distribution enhances product appeal, ensures color fidelity, and guides customer flow, ultimately delivering significant results.
Highlight Areas & Checkouts: Guidance and Comfort
Promotional end-mounts require light to attract attention. Providing lenses with a medium beam angle (such as a 30x70° elliptical spot) in the gondola end creates a localized highlight, naturally directing customers' attention and effectively drawing attention to the promoted items.
Checkout counters, on the other hand, require a glare-free, high-definition, comfortable environment for customers and employees to conduct transactions and inspect items. Lenses specifically optimized for vertical illuminance (Eh) ensure adequate, soft lighting on countertops and facial areas, while avoiding direct or reflected glare at customer eye level (UGR <19), creating a friendly and professional checkout experience.
General Shelving & Aisles: Balancing Uniformity and Efficiency
General aisles, with their largest area, are key to energy conservation. The goal is to minimize the number of luminaires and energy consumption while ensuring uniform, shadow-free illumination across all shelves, and to avoid light spillage into aisles that causes waste and glare.
Zhaga-standard linear lenses (such as the 280x40mm Zhaga standard size) allow luminaire manufacturers to quickly design luminaires with flexible lengths and consistent light patterns, greatly simplifying supply chain and inventory management and providing a cost-effective and easy-to-maintain solution for large supermarket lighting areas.
For example, the Asymmetric 25° lens. This Asymmetric Low UGR optical design maximizes light flux onto vertical shelf surfaces rather than horizontal aisles, ensuring uniform illumination across shelves while maintaining control and energy efficiency.
Supermarket lighting is a complex system project. A successful strategy relies on zoning and precise lighting. From enhancing merchandise value to guiding customer behavior and reducing operating costs, precision optical lenses play an indispensable role in every process.
Asahi Optics offers a variety of sizes for supermarket lighting, in addition to the 280x40 Zhaga-standard lens. We also offer LED lenses in the 1x7 and 1x14 series. If you have a supermarket lighting project, we may be able to help!