by Michael J. Marino
Up to 631,000 pounds of ice can be stored at the new facility of Yellowstone Ice & Water (YIW) off 1st Avenue North in downtown Billings, according to General Manager, Jeff Deimling.
YIW has been in business for nearly half a century offering purified water and ice to the greater Billings area. The business also has an outdoor vending machine which can dispense bagged ice or 5-gallon water bottles at $0.50 per gallon after hours.
Deimling said the decision to move their ice making operations into this new facility, scheduled for grand opening June 15, was based partly on the need to meet rapidly growing customer demand. “Our business model dictated that we couldn’t manufacture enough product at our old facility to sustain the customers we currently have, or to increase our business area,” stated Deimling. He said the new building can make up 140 tons of ice a day, which is over twice the capacity of the old facility.
“There’s nobody touching any of our product with their hands,” Deimling noted in describing the building’s automated operations. YIW staff sanitizes Certified by both the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the International Packaged Ice Association (IPIA), he said the new YIW facility is truly “state of the art,” and the only one of its kind in Montana.
YIW’s ice making process begins by treating large amounts of water pulled in from the City using carbon filtrate. The water is then frozen using ammonia, a highly efficient (but potentially dangerous) refrigerant chemical. In the next room of the facility, a large auger shaves the massive blocks of freshly frozen ice into cubes. Finally, a machine uses suction-cup like devices to place the ice cubes into bags according to weight.
Regarding the potential hazards of ammonia, Deimling told Yellowstone County News the facility is protected by the latest air quality control equipment on the market. It is designed to set off an alarm if ammonia is detected in the air. “If the level of ammonia in the air goes above a certain amount, this equipment will shut everything in here down immediately,” said Deimling.
According to Deimling, the new ice making facility has been a long time in the making, as last year, the company had reached its production limits. Now, YIW officials can move on to their next project: expanding their bottling operation.
To learn more about Yellowstone Ice & Water, call 406-245-4120 or go online to www.billingsbottledwater.com.
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