We’re running out of dry ice. Ice cream shops are now limiting what they offer. ■ Baskin-Robbins temporarily restricts service…why? On the 14th, Nagoya City experienced 21 consecutive days of extremely hot weather, the longest streak in 82 years. What you want to eat on a hot summer day is… ice cream! The hugely popular Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream store was facing difficulties in offering takeaway ice cream until last week for a certain reason. Woman: “I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. I think dry ice is essential during the hot summer, so this is good news. Thank you for coming back.” Baskin-Robbins provides dry ice for takeaway orders for up to two hours, but has reduced this to 30 minutes from the 24th of last month to the 11th of this month. This is because a major dry ice manufacturer imposed shipping restrictions nationwide due to a shortage of raw materials and faulty equipment. ■New requests flood in from restaurants struggling to procure supplies Dry ice retailers were also affected. Tokyo Ice Lab President Makoto Fujikawa: “This year, we’ve been receiving orders for dry ice from places other than the ones we usually deliver to.” Restaurants that were having trouble sourcing dry ice have been inundated with new requests. President Fujikawa: “Some people who need it are willing to pay 500 or 1,000 yen (per kilo). I think they’ve been calling all kinds of places and desperately searching for it.” Dry ice is likely to become a luxury item in the future. What on earth is going on?
■Amid raw material shortages…demand grows as a result of deep reflection This summer, the shortage of dry ice has come to the fore, with Baskin-Robbins limiting take-out times. Oya Shoji, a sales company in Ibaraki, collects and reuses the pieces of dry ice that are produced during the dry ice processing process. President of Oya Shoji Co., Ltd., Hirohiro Oya “Because scraps are wasted, we decided to create a manufacturing process that reforms them once more so that no waste is produced.” We make up for the shortage of raw materials by reusing them, but the cost of purchasing them continues to rise, and we have had to raise our selling prices by about 20% in two years. Why is there a nationwide shortage of dry ice? President Oya “The reduction in oil production has led to a reduction in carbon dioxide production. This has not been a gradual effect, but rather has been rapidly increasing in influence over the past few years.” The raw material for dry ice is carbon dioxide, which is a by-product of oil refineries and other factories. In addition to the spread of electric vehicles reducing carbon dioxide emissions, demand is also increasing due to the extreme heat. President Oya: “There is new demand due to the dangerous heat, and delivery companies deliver frozen and refrigerated goods. It really is used for a variety of purposes.”
>>5 If it’s an ice pack, it’s only as good as a refrigerator, right? If it’s dry ice, if it’s sealed, the air space can go below zero, so it’s just a matter of temperature control.
I’ve noticed that the Co-op has been bringing in crushed dry ice instead of chunks lately, so I wonder if it’s because there’s a shortage. I thought it would be a pain to dispose of it, but if that’s the case, I guess I’ll just have to put up with it.
There are a lot of by-products that are produced during the oil refining process, like sulfur dust and chemicals used to disinfect soil, that affect a lot of things.
The raw material for dry ice is carbon dioxide, which is a by-product of factories that refine oil and other processes. Oh, I didn’t know that was the case.
The dry ice shortage is serious. By placing dry ice on the abdomen of a corpse, the entire body can be cooled and stored in an iced state. If the dry ice runs out, the body will have to be stored in a refrigerator, but refrigerators are ridiculously expensive.
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