Refrigeration Magazine - May 2024 issue

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May 2024 Vol. 207 │ No. 3 ISSN #0034-3137

EDITORIAL STAFF

Editor/Publisher

Mary Y. Cronley refrigerationmag@gmail.com (404) 819-5446

Senior Staff Writer

Joe Cronley cronley.joe@gmail.com (404) 295-5712

Art Direction

Markurious Marketing hello@markurious.com (678) 439-6534

7

SUPPLIERS

REDUCING FOOD LOSS AND WASTE

ADVERTISING, SUBSCRIPTIONS, ACCOUNTS

Mary Y. Cronley Editor/Publisher refrigerationmag@gmail.com (404) 819-5446

Established as ICE in 1906, Refrigeration Magazine™ is published thirteen times a year, including the Annual Buyer's Guide.

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Copyright © 2023 by REFRIGERATION Magazine™. All rights reserved.

cites data showing that in the the average family of four each year on food that ends

By Lowell Randel

11

GUEST STORY

By Mike Landino

Partners

DDoug Carpenter, President and CEO of Automatic Ice Systems in St. Louis, Mo., knows about partnering up in order to further your goals in business. More than 25 years ago, Mr. Carpenter made the decision to go to automation for his bag palletizing system. Check out the story of PARTNERSHIP and the value of them, inside this issue.

When I first came into the ice industry, there were few partnerships. Most suppliers were on their own and in competition. We all worked together for the good of the industry, but everyone was trying to keep their piece of the pie, plus hopefully a little bit more. That’s the value of attending conventions and regional meetings…if you can find those who are willing to be open and helpful to you as you build your own partnerships.

The associations are what we are willing to share with each other.

Happy Memorial Day, and Thank You For Your Service.

"When I first came into the ice industry, there were few partnerships. Most suppliers were on their own and in competition. We all worked together for the good of the industry, but everyone was trying to keep their piece of the pie, plus hopefully a little bit more."

Polar Temp will continue to manufacture and sell ice merchandisers that use R-448A refrigerant for most of the 2024 calendar year. R-448A complies with regulatory mandates.

CA: 866 . 746.0437

GA: 800 . 554.4852

NC: 866 . 827.3232

TN: 865 . 454.4481

TX: 866 . 598.4206

The Value of Partnerships

By Doug Carpenter, AIS President & CEO

2008 AIS began working with RAESCO to develop a new automatic palletizing platform that could seamlessly integrate with pallet handling equipment to deliver a truly fully automatic ice bag palletizing system for the Packaged Ice Industry. This new palletizing platform required an all-new electronic control system as well as an integration control platform for the pallet handling components. Mark VandeSande was contracted by RAESCO to develop these control solutions. The responsibility to develop this new palletizing machine was given to the original RAESCO palletizing fabricator, David Engle of Engle Manufacturing. Through our collaboration with RAESCO we worked with Mark and Dave to successfully commission several fully automated packaged ice palletizing systems over the next few years.

During our partnership with RAESCO, ownership changed several times, but our relationship with Mark and Dave remained the same. In 2015, our frustrations with the latest owners of RAESCO were making it difficult for AIS to offer the level of services our client partners expect from AIS. We decided to break off our relationship with RAESCO and start building our own line of palletizing solutions based

on our current solutions developed by Mark and Dave. Our goal was to continue to build on the same proven palletizing platforms but to initiate major improvements throughout both semi-automatic and fully automated palletizing platforms to deliver even more reliable industry palletizing solutions. The result of this now stronger partnership with Mark and Dave led to the development of the A1 fully automatic and SA2 semiautomatic Automatic ICE™ Palletizing Systems. This focused partnership allowed us to deliver even better automatic palletizing solutions and services focused exclusively on the packaged ice industry.

Our partnership with Mark and Dave has allowed us to commission dozens of packaged ice palletizing solutions for our clients throughout North America and as far away as Australia. We focus on continued system improvements and enhancements to ensure that our clients receive the best packaged ice palletizing solutions and support services. From system design, through project engineering, to system installation, start-up, and post project client support, Dave, Mark, and the entire AIS team work together every step of the way to achieve the best possible results.

This is only one example of how strong industry partnerships lead to greater successes. In addition, we partner with equipment manufacturers to develop new product enhancements and custom engineered solutions to ensure that our clients get the most from their investments. These longterm partnerships become more than just a place to source equipment. They allow us to collaborate using our industry experience and engineering talents to ensure continued product enhancements of the equipment technologies that we integrate into our exclusive Automatic ICE™ Systems.

Our industry partnerships also extend to our clients. Our core client base is much more than just customers. We work closely with our client partners to ensure they get the most from their equipment investments and the products and services we provide. It’s never about what we can sell our clients, it’s about how we learn from one another in a trusting relationship

to collaborate in the development of tailor-made solutions to achieve better outcomes. From developing better equipment, integrated solutions, and products and services, AIS focuses on client success supported by relationships that they can trust. For over 45 years, AIS has been built on one single principle: Our client success fuels what we do. Our success can only be achieved by ensuring our client’s success. RM

REDUCING FOOD LOSS AND WASTE

Three U.S. government agencies release joint draft national strategy.

By Lowell Randel

On December 4, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a draft national strategy intended to make progress toward the national goal to reduce food loss and waste in the United States by 50% by 2030. The rollout of this strategy holds great potential to showcase the vital role that the cold chain plays, and GCCA is committed to doing that.

The strategy cites data showing that in the United States, the average family of four spends $1,500 each year on food that ends up uneaten. It goes on to report that there are 66 million tons of food in the U.S. municipal waste stream. Food is also the single most common material found in landfills, comprising 24% of municipal solid waste in landfills.

It’s estimated that in 2021, food loss and waste and surplus food was valued at $444 billion, which represents roughly 2% of the U.S. gross domestic product.

The goals of the National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics are to prevent the loss and waste of food, where possible; increase recycling of food and other organic materials to support a more circular economy for all; reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG); save households and businesses money; and build cleaner, healthier communities.

Implementation of the strategy is intended to provide social and economic benefits such as:

• Increasing food access for food-insecure Americans and increase the recovery and donation rate of wholesome food, for example through the emergency food system.

• Creating materials management or food waste reducing innovation-related new jobs, industries and sectors of the economy.

• Increasing supply chain resiliency.

• Delivering financial savings to households.

The National Strategy proposes the following four objectives:

1. Prevent food loss where possible.

2. Prevent food waste where possible.

3. Increase the recycling rate for all organic waste.

4. Support policies that incentivize and encourage food loss and waste prevention and organics recycling.

Objective 1:

Prevent food loss where possible. The strategy suggests that innovation, collaboration and market development will drive progress toward preventing the loss of foods and enable significant social, environmental and economic benefits from farm to table. Some actions, such as policy adjustments and innovations, can apply to both food loss and waste and can allow the equitable development of new technologies at all levels of government that help the United States meet its National Food Loss and Waste Reduction Goal.

Opportunities to reduce food loss at the production and distribution stages of the food supply chain can lead to greater economic returns for producers, manufacturers and distributors. One of the keys to achieving this objective is optimizing the harvest or collection of raw commodities and foods. This will require enhanced collaboration across the food supply chain to develop new models and data to support new policies that use a greater share of foods produced.

The strategy highlights examples that include whole crop purchase and/or partial order acceptance by retailers, procurement models to source local produce (such as between farms and schools that accept produce donations), better integration of

production and processing facilities, improved on-farm storage, and technical assistance on loss reduction approaches through publicprivate partnerships.

The strategy identifies the need for technological innovations, such as improvements in demand forecasting, leveraging predictive analytics (i.e., artificial intelligence), strengthening on-farm food rescue and the equitable distribution of surplus food. The strategy also calls out the need to optimize handling, routing and storage; improve transportation, inventory and supply chain management with best practices and technologies, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain technology and remote sensing.

GCCA is already actively working with food banks and is well positioned to play a role in advancing this objective.

Objective 2:

Prevent the waste of food where possible.

Food waste from consumers and consumerfacing businesses (retail and food service) comprises roughly half of U.S. food loss and waste. This carries larger environmental and economic costs than food losses upstream (i.e., on-farm or within food processing and distribution), since costs accumulate as food is wasted further down the supply chain.

Suggested actions to achieve Objective 2 include:

• Developing a national consumer education and behavior-change campaign.

• Educating children and youth about strategies to reduce food waste and encouraging adoption of lifelong best practices in schools to reduce food waste.

• Partnering with the private sector to find upstream solutions to consumer food waste.

• Facilitating and incentivizing food donations to improve access to healthy and affordable food.

• Identifying and addressing drivers of U.S. food loss and waste and the incentives to reduce it.

• Investing in behavioral science to determine the most effective strategies to change household behaviors related to food waste.

• Identifying technology-based solutions and best practices to reduce food loss and waste among retailers, manufacturers and food service providers, including in their supply chains.

Objective 3:

Increase the recycling rate for all organic waste.

Recycling organic waste offers the opportunity to recover valuable resources, such as nutrients and energy, and create healthy soils. Certain types of organic waste can be converted to animal food, composted, anaerobically digested, or converted into energy or other products, thus providing nutrients to livestock, returning nutrients to the soil, or displacing the use of fossil fuels—all while reducing GHGs. Organics recycling can help build a more circular economy and reduce landfill methane emissions.

Objective 4:

Support policies that incentivize and encourage food loss and waste prevention and organics recycling. The strategy calls for the development of policies that incentivize and encourage the prevention of food loss and waste, redistribution

of surplus food, development of additional organics recycling infrastructure, and expansion of markets for recycled products made from organics and soil amendments made from food and other organic waste to help the United States meet its food loss and waste reduction goals. These policies can be federal, state and local, and many states and cities have already enacted policies to reduce food waste.

GCCA is encouraged by the release of the draft national strategy and will continue working closely with USDA, FDA and EPA as the agencies work towards implementation. GCCA will also build on its collaboration with food industry partners, food banks and others in the private sector to advance our shared goal of reducing food loss and waste.

LOWELL RANDEL is Senior Vice President, Government and Legal Affairs at GCCA.

EMAIL: lrandel@gcca.org

By Mike Landino

WRobert Randell brushed his hair back and acknowledged the producer’s “Go ahead,” signal. He stared into the camera with his trademark, arched-eyebrow.

“I’m here in Spencer, Colorado, on the most spectacular story this reporter has ever had the privilege to cover. The Man of Ice, Tubular Dude, or T.D., as he is known in Spencer, has, for the last four days, shocked and delighted the local population with his appearance and heroics . . .”

The picture changed from the dapper reporter to clips of Tubular Dude hovering above a smoldering car, holding a petrified mother and her little girl.

“As you can see, this unbelievable phenomenon, a man, made completely of ice, has brought this small town’s population to the bursting point.”

Panning the crowd, the camera showed a town, swelled with the curious. Family’s, roving bands of teenagers, several collections of U.F.O. believers carrying banners

Chapter 9

members and their clergy walked the streets, with the Black Angus serving as the focal point.

“I’m joined today by Spencer police spokesman, Captain Gaines. You have an important announcement, Captain?”

“Yes, Randell, yes I do?”

Sarah Gaines took the Twinkie out of her mouth and smiled. Her husband rightly took her advice to call the CNN reporter by his first name. That’ll show this town a thing or two, she mused, already envisioning the political capital this exposure would net.

The camera panned in on the captain’s, ill-disguised giddy delight at being in front of the lights.

“Today,” the captain paused for effect, “the Spencer police department, under my command, has gathered vital information we hope will lead us to this Man of Ice.”

“What do you plan on doing if you are able to catch him.”

Captain Gaines struggled to remember how Sarah told him to answer this question if asked. Gotta play all the angles, he thought anxiously. “We are not trying to catch him; we just want to talk to him. He has broken no laws, except for the,” he smiled brightly, “the laws of nature.”

“What clues have you unveiled to this point, Captain Gaines?”

“At this time, I cannot report further as this is an on-going investigation, but this I will assure you. As long as I am Captain of the Spencer police department, the residents of Spencer can rest easy. We will have this situation handled in the very near future.”

Promised a full minute of camera time, the captain continued. “I have been headed this town’s police department for many years and I can . . .

Bob Jacobs and Sharon Petrie watched discreetly, as Benny walked to his private vehicle. They followed him to each delivery, twenty-two in all, and saw nothing of Tubular Dude or anything else out of the ordinary. The next move would be to follow him home.

“What are we going to do with these reporters?” The two investigators had noticed Sharon and Bob following the ice

delivery truck earlier this morning. Quite a bit of their day involved jokes about the reporters’ sad attempts to avoid detection by Benny.

The tall investigator looked over to his short muscular friend and sighed. “Good thing this Benny guy doesn’t have a clue he’s being followed.”

“We know where the guy lives. Let’s just get there first. We’ll find a place to put the car and hole up behind some bushes. Then, we’ll wait.”

“Sounds good.”

Two blocks from Benny’s house, sat a parked Ford Ranger. Its occupant had vacated the car twenty moments before and walked to the address he had written on the back of Robert Randell’s business card. The address belonged to a Benjamin Blythe. Captain Gaines gave the information to the CNN reporter.

Police officer Henry Smotes walked back to his unmarked police car. The Volvo he had just ticketed for reckless driving, another out of state curiosity seeker, drove off, less than happy about being stopped. This is getting out of hand, Henry thought, fourteen

tickets handed out in just four hours.

With the other seven officers on staff, all working overtime hours, and added help from the neighboring towns, Henry wondered if it would be enough. The curious continued to work their way to the small town of Spencer.

So far, Henry’s day, besides writing tickets, included crowd control and trying to manage the heavy influx of traffic that choked every road leading into Spencer. As a child, he once visited Mardi Gras, in New Orleans. The atmosphere of a party currently taking place in his small town, he could only compare to the memory of that visit.

Everybody wants to see the man of ice, including me.

His next item of agenda would be to talk to Benjamin Blythe again.

“He’s turning, Bob.” Sharon Petrie looked down at the camera she held her in lap, confirming the lens cap was removed. Won’t make that mistake again.

“Ok,” Bob acknowledged as he pulled over to the curb. The back of Benny’s truck and the front of the house was visible. “Let’s

hold up here for a moment.” They watched as Benny walked into his house.

“Oh! Look. Who’s that? Sharon pointed to the left rear of the house. An over-weight, elderly man, ran out the back door and alongside the house towards the street. His face, flushed and puffed, threatened to enclose around his terror-stricken eyes.

“I know him. That’s the janitor from the police station.”

Arching an eyebrow, the tall investigator looked over to his fellow sleuth. “Well, well. We have Benjamin Blythe, a fired janitor, two reporters, and us. Very interesting. “Right about now, our Benny is probably staring at a ransacked house, ya think?”

Benny stared in shock at the inside of his small home. Every drawer in the house was open with the contents thrown to the floor. The furniture was upturned and his closets had been torn apart. In his horror, as he continued to look through the house, he realized that his guns, previously hanging on a rack, now lay on the couch, minus his collector’s edition, Colt 45.

As he searched, he felt a sick sensation form in the pit of his stomach. The digital camera

was missing. Several pictures of T.D. were on that camera, some of Benny and the man of ice and several with grandpa standing beside Tubular Dude. What stopped him dead in his tracks him was the empty spot on the desk in the dining room that only this morning held his address book.

Thirty seconds later, Benny was in his vehicle, tearing out of the driveway.

Grandpa!

“What’s that all about?”

“I don’t know, but it probably has to do with the fat guy.”

Bob Jacobs looked over to Sharon. “Let’s follow him.”

“This is getting better and better,” the tall investigator said to his fellow sleuth. “Let’s tail the reporters and hope they don’t blow it by following this Benjamin guy too closely.”

“You crack me up, grandpa.” T.D. stood beside Clarence in the cold apartment below the barn. Clarence had earlier brought down a pingpong table that had been in storage for over ten years in the barn loft. T.D. won three games in a row.

“Whatta expect,” responded grandpa as he tried to loosen up the thick parka jacket. “I’m playing with a handicap. This thing weighs a ton.”

“Hey, how would you like to swing a paddle with all this?” T.D. said, gesturing at his enormous bulk.

“It doesn’t seem to slow you down, my frozen friend.”

Grandpa and T.D. laughed together as they prepared for another game.

The digital camera lay on the filthy seat of the Ford Ranger. The power was still on. The picture screen faced up revealing an image of the man of ice, smiling widely, with his arm around an old man with white hair and steel blue eyes.

An address book lay beside the camera. It was opened up to “Grandpa.” Beside the book, lay a Colt 45. The janitor turned left.

“I’ll have one more whack at it, see if I can beat you this time, T.D.”

Clarence got up from the Lazy Boy chair. He smiled warmly at the man of ice.

“Ah, come on, grandpa. I know you held back your best stuff.”

“My best stuff is a distance

memory,” Clarence laughed. “Did I ever tell you about the time I . . .

Officer Henry Smotes remained a good distance from the investigator’s car. He had arrived at Benjamin’s house just in time to see Benny racing out of his driveway with two cars following him.

Good thing I’m in an unmarked vehicle.

The small Ford Ranger pick-up truck turned left on a dirt road. The driver’s heart beat a little faster and sweat rolled down his face. The gun, now on his lap, felt heavier than it was. Never had he done anything like this. His life, always one disaster after another, he now thought, led him to this moment. He allowed his hand to touch the gun. It felt warm and forbidding in his hand.

You want to get ahead in this life ya gotta bend the rules a little. Yeah, right. You bent the rules and what did you get? Fired!

His hand held the gun tightly as he felt his anger rising.

I’ll get that piece of ice if it’s the last thing I do!

Up ahead, the janitor saw a house with a large barn to its side. RM

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• Vogt 118 Water- Cooled Ice Maker, 5 Ton 7/8

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• Hamer 390 Form, Fill & Seal Machine

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• Hamer 310 Form, Fill, & Seal 3 available

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• JMC B1008 Balers, To Include Step Saver Belt Conveyor

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• Hamer 1-Head Baler 24’ Ruff Top Belt Conveyor

• 24’ Belt Conveyor

• 16lb roll stock

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CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING

Rates are $1.00 per word, with a minimum charge. Any blind ads, with an assigned box number c/o publisher, add $10.00. Deadline for upcoming issue is the 1st of the previous month. For advertising and listing information, contact Mary at (404) 819-5446 or refrigerationmag@gmail.com.

• Baltimore Air Coil Condensers

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SOUTHEAST (continued)

• 1 Matthiesen 40 ton bin, NEW

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• 1 cooler/freezer walk-in used

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We ship daily in all Ontario and Québec. We can arrange transport for you wherever you need it.

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Plastic liners for clear block makers $1.24/ea

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