How a National Grocery Chain Used Fexa Trakref to Achieve Regulatory Readiness in Under 30 Days

One of America’s largest grocery chains turned to Fexa Trakref to transform its approach to regulatory compliance. With Trakref’s industry-leading tools, the chain was able to achieve complete CARB regulatory readiness across more than two thousand locations--all in less than 30 days! 

Fexa Trakref offers centralized data management and automated reporting systems that gave this national grocery retailer the tools it needed to close critical compliance gaps and establish ongoing audit readiness across all of its sites. 

Customer Situation

As a national grocery chain operating over two thousand locations across multiple states and regulatory jurisdictions, this Fexa Trakref client faced complex HVAC/R system management challenges. A grocery store chain of this magnitude uses a massive amount of refrigerant, as the facilities management team needs to keep each facility cool and all of their refrigerators and freezers up and running.  

The company had experienced rapid growth through acquisition and expansion, but that growth had also created a fragmented network of stores.  Each location required meticulous environmental compliance oversight, making regulatory adherence both critical and high-risk for the organization. 

Compliance demands varied from state to state, and the CARB regulatory deadline was looming. The grocery chain needed a solution to address the liabilities of weak compliance protocols--fast. 

Such a large physical footprint meant that the scale and complexity of the company’s HVAC/R systems demanded an urgent need for a unified, automated refrigerant management platform.

The Challenge

Before implementing Fexa Trakref, this national grocery chain struggled with fragmented systems that created significant compliance vulnerabilities across an extensive asset portfolio. With thousands of locations and no unified system for refrigerant data tracking or compliance oversight, the company was facing a high risk of fines, audits, and missed deadlines. 

Fragmented data management

The company's rapid growth through acquisition and expansion had resulted in a number of problems: 

  • A patchwork of systems and spreadsheets used across regions
  • No centralized processes to track refrigerant uses and leak events
  • Blind spots in compliance oversight
  • Regional teams operating independently, without standardized protocols
  • Irregular compliance 

Regulatory Complexity

Like other large companies with sites spread across multiple regions, this major retailer was dealing with variations in regulatory rules from one state to the next. Of course, this was in addition to federal requirements. Company leaders were overwhelmed by the sheer number of regulations, locations, and assets that needed to be in full compliance. 

Without a strong, unified system, executives at the company weren’t able to confidently determine what compliance gaps existed or what steps were needed to achieve full regulatory readiness.

Critical Data Gaps

An internal review revealed the precarious nature of the company’s compliance position. The review identified multiple problems, including: 

  • No standard method to collect or verify leak rate data
  • No clear accountability for HVAC/R asset tracking
  • Several key fields required for R3 reporting were either incomplete or missing entirely

With the filing deadline for CARB approaching, the team needed more than incremental fixes—they required a complete transformation of their refrigerant management approach.

The Fexa Trakref Solution

Upon recognizing the urgent need for comprehensive refrigerant management, the grocery chain selected Fexa Trakref for its ability to deliver rapid regulatory compliance across complex, multi-location operations like theirs. 

The platform offers centralized data management, automated reporting capabilities, and standardized processes, all of which were necessary to transform this fragmented regulation framework into a unified compliance system. 

Fexa Trakref's implementation focused on delivering immediate results while establishing long-term regulatory readiness. Key features that impressed the grocery chain included:

  • Centralized data management that could pull in and normalize asset, maintenance, and refrigerant use data across all locations
  • Automated data validation to identify missing or inconsistent entries required for CARB compliance
  • One-click R3 report generation mapped to regional and federal standards
  • Process standardization across all regions for tracking, reporting, and managing refrigerant events
  • Ongoing risk monitoring through Compliance Center visibility with alerts for anomalies, upcoming deadlines, and elevated leak rates

The transformation began immediately! 

Fexa Trakref has an impressive ability to integrate existing data from different regional systems and spreadsheets into a single, comprehensive platform. This eliminated the previous fragmentation that had created compliance vulnerabilities across the portfolio.

One of the platform’s most critical capabilities is Trakref's automated data validation system, which immediately flagged the missing or inconsistent entries that had been preventing successful regulatory reporting. Rather than requiring manual data collection and verification across thousands of locations, the platform systematically identified and addressed compliance gaps.

The automated CARB R3 report generation feature proved essential for meeting CARB regulatory deadlines. Instead of scrambling to compile reports manually from fragmented data sources, the grocery chain could generate complete, audit-ready reports with a single click. This ensured accuracy and compliance with both regional and federal standards.

Most importantly, Fexa Trakref established standardized processes that every store in every region could adopt. This created consistency in tracking, reporting, and refrigerant management, and it eliminated the regional variations that had previously caused glaring blind spots.

Customer Benefits

The implementation of Fexa Trakref delivered immediate and transformational benefits across the grocery chain's entire operation. Most notably, the company achieved complete regulatory readiness and successfully filed their annual R3 reports to meet CARB requirements in less than 30 days.

The automated systems delivered cascading benefits throughout the organization, including:

  • Complete regulatory readiness achieved in under 30 days
  • Successful CARB R3 report filing 
  • Unified data management
  • Automated compliance monitoring 
  • Standardized processes across all locations
  • Risk visibility through real-time monitoring of leak rates and compliance status
  • Eliminated manual data collection
  • Reduction of administrative burden
  • Comprehensive asset tracking
  • Automated regulatory alerts for continued compliance
  • Audit-ready documentation 

Key Results

Thanks to Fexa Trakref, the grocery chain was able to eliminate the chaotic approach to compliance that was costing time and money.  Insights from the platform provided everything they needed to improve their regulatory status across all of their locations. 

The company was able to say goodbye to the last-minute deadline scrambling they had become accustomed to. Instead, Trakref’s API gave them a unified, efficient system with continuous monitoring capabilities, anomaly notifications, deadline management, and improved regulatory timelines.

The key results of the company using Fexa Trakref included:

Regulatory Transformation

  • Complete CARB regulatory readiness achieved in less than 30 days
  • Successful annual R3 report filing meeting all mandatory deadlines
  • Ongoing audit readiness established across all locations

Operational Excellence

  • Unified refrigerant data and documentation across 2,000+ locations
  • Eliminated regional system fragmentation and compliance blind spots
  • Automated compliance monitoring and reporting processes

Risk Management

  • Identified and closed critical data gaps in HVAC/R asset records
  • Transformed unknown compliance exposure into measurable insights
  • Established proactive monitoring for leak rates and regulatory deadlines

Transform your approach to regulatory compliance with Fexa Trakref

When this national grocery chain needed to improve its regulatory compliance protocols across thousands of locations in multiple regions, its leadership understood that this approach would require a total transformation. 

Fexa Trakref offered that transformation in the form of a centralized platform that could handle sophisticated regulatory requirements, quickly and effectively. 

Do you need to achieve regulatory readiness for your multi-location operations? You can benefit from the same rapid compliance transformation that this leading grocery chain experienced, customized to your specific regulatory requirements and operational needs.

See how Fexa Trakref's comprehensive refrigerant management platform can eliminate compliance gaps and deliver automated regulatory reporting across your entire portfolio. Schedule a personalized demo today to discover the power of centralized data management, automated compliance monitoring, and one-click regulatory reporting.