With Spring fully underway and Summer just around the corner, beer gardens and outdoor areas are starting experience more footfall as the weather improves.  As the heat rises and the parasols go up, commercial ice machines are expected to handle the additional demand in businesses across the country. Is yours ready?

Running out of ice could cost your business time and money, especially so if you have to buy ice in. Therefore, it's important to ensure your machine is able to cope with growing demand in the summer months - whether you're serving a nice refreshing cola or Mojito cocktail, don't caught out without ice!

Perhaps you are running a small café or mobile catering business where you simply need ice for drinks to help your customers keep cool in the heat and add value to your product. The Polar T315 ice machine would be a fantastic solution in these circumstances, as there's no need to plumb the ice maker in.  It's portable and can be taken to all sorts of locations such as festivals, fêtes and other similar events and produces great quality ice whilst looking stylish and attractive in front of customers. Producing 10kg of ice every 24 hours and with a 1kg storage bin, the T315 is perfect for smaller catering occasions.
Alternatively, if you have access to a mains water supply. the larger Polar T136 ice maker has double the output and capacity with a 4kg bin and 20kg of ice made every 24 hours.


If you find your business is running short of ice during the warmer months, it might be worth considering either upgrading or adding to your existing output.  Not only should you consider whether your ice maker is producing ice quickly enough, the machine's storage bin needs to be large enough to cater for surges in demand, such as during breaks at sporting events or concerts.

It's important to remember that it takes around 17kg of ice for every 100 drinks served, so it's worth checking if your ice machine can cope with the demand.  The Ice-O-Matic ICEU106 has a large 22kg storage bin and a high output of 46kg/24hr, so it's ideal for the busiest of establishments.

There's also the type of ice to consider.  By using a commercial ice flaker, you can produce much smaller ice, used for the cold storage of perishable foods or producing freshly-mixed cocktails.  An example of a great quality, high output ice flaker would be the Hoshizaki FM80EE, as it has a huge 85kg/24hr output and 26kg storage bin.  Alternatively, use a separate ice crusher alongside an ice maker to have the versatility of both types of ice.

Commercial ice machines and crushers are made by some of the most reputable brands in catering equipment, such as Polar, Whirlpool, Ice-O-Matic, Hoshizaki, Foster and Waring.  Browse the full range of commercial ice makers here at Nisbets.


By David Evans