Topic: [Interest Probe] Bulk dry ice, pellets & blocks (US/CAN) (Read 1068 times)

Naw. He needs more regular buyers before buying dry ice in bulk. You generally don't want the stuff on-hand without shipping for more than ~3-5 days from the time it leaves the factory. At ~7-8 days, the ice is basically "expired" because it's lost too much to sublimation. It'd still be usable, but you'd probably need to use 3-4x as much because since air doesn't/shouldn't escape the poly-seal bags, you end up with big CO2 puffs in bags with a little ice, decreasing contact/effectiveness (simply poking a hole in the bag with a knife might fix this, but the -119*F bags become somewhat brittle and a poke might cause it to fully open during shipping, especially if the ice should crack and shard, where it could have a sharp edge poke through the bag). We do offer unsealed poly bags, but that's generally not suitable for shipping food... customer would be in a for a nasty surprise if they went in to grab another package of beef and ended up grabbing a chunk of dry ice. Dry ice burns don't hurt quite like hot burns, but the skin's severely scarred forever.

In our smallest container, we ship out ~115 2"x5"x5" cuts, which'd need a Hell of a lot of beef ordered.

Thinks work out with Andelin?

I've read a few beef shippers' threads on the forum over the past year and didn't see their threads bumped since, but didn't realize we had someone doing significant BTC business -- awesome! I'll point him over here right away. Thanks for the tip!

You should talk with Andelin. I bet you two could make each other some money. Interesting service.

I recently started work for a major dry ice company primarily supplying the MidWest, Central South, and East coast of the US, as well as parts of Canada (however, shipping can be done outside this range). Knowing some businesses are looking to "complete the circle" and purchase their supplies with BTC, I thought this could be of some interest, particularly for our meat industry (Omaha Steaks is currently the largest purchaser) and'd love to be able to put together a compelling set of documents for corporate with a list of real companies which'd be interested in making purchases in BTC. Our dry ice pellets also make an excellent, environmentally-friendly cleaner for heavy-duty objects using dry ice blasting, particularly in knocking oxidation and any other unpleasantness off pipes and metal connections quickly and with far superior results to air or water blasting, and being much cleaner than many conventional harder blasting methods (and unlike most traditional hard blasting methods, dry ice blasting can be done inside the factory).

Dry ice shipped is considered food grade and is generally in a purity range of 99.95-99.98%. All of our containers are thoroughly cleaned and sanitized each time they're returned (and they're sometimes returned with the most bizarre stuff inside, from doritos to whiskey to gold bracelets) with strict quality control measures in place on the line.

Dry ice typically costs <$1/lb, with less-processed types generally being cheapest (list of cuts for producers, list of cuts for consumers). For large orders in our operating range, CCPI can use its own trucks to ship directly to you and minimize shipping costs.

Some side-notes: I'd suggest trying to get poly-sealed or naked blocks if you can -- Kraft bagging is a nightmare and it's difficult to determine if the ice broke during wrapping or packing, while they'll all stick together once packaged (in which case, you'd probably be better off with a naked block). The airport cuts are cheap (they're reformed from scraps), but tend to be more ugly/deformed/non-whole and have unappealing bagging. High-density ice is generally a good option, though they probably won't tell you about it unless you ask -- they tend to be fully intact more often (and prettier in general) and you can use less to cool more for longer, saving on shipping.