Spectral LED technology assessment for food retail refrigeration: correlated color temperature predicts chromaticity but not energy or photooxidative performance

Lighting accounts for 15–25% of electricity use in commercial buildings, yet LED products are still specified almost entirely by correlated color temperature (CCT), a metric that says nothing about energy performance or environmental impact. This study proposes a spectrum-based, multi-criteria method for selecting LEDs in commercial refrigerated display, evaluating luminous efficacy, photooxidative product degradation, and visual quality as three explicit criteria rather than collapsing them into a single index. CCT turns out to be a poor basis for energy specification: 73% of the variation in photooxidative performance occurs within a single CCT category rather than between categories, so two LEDs sharing the same CCT rating can have very different energy and environmental profiles. Chromaticity is a different story: CCT predicts it comparatively well, so color rendition tracks CCT even though energy consumption and photooxidative impact do not. General-purpose LEDs selected by spectrum in the 2700–3500 K range match the photooxidative performance of specialized meat-display sources while requiring 38–66% less radiant flux at equal illuminance. 4000 K sources carry markedly higher photooxidative impact than the 2700–3500 K range, exposing a CCT-dependent trade-off between color-temperature choice and product preservation. Meat-display LEDs marketed for the application require 38–66% more radiant flux without any statistically significant preservation benefit, a poor return that works against building energy targets. Because it reports direct electrical consumption, indirect losses from food waste, and merchandising performance as explicit, separately tracked criteria, this approach offers building operators a basis for LED selection that CCT alone cannot provide.