Ice is the order most often forgotten and the hardest to fix on the day. Run out at 2pm on a hot Saturday and you are not selling iced coffee, iced tea or anything from the smoothie menu until the next delivery. Yet most sites order ice by habit rather than by number, which is why the same cafes run short every July.
Start from drinks, not from bags
Work out ice per drink, then multiply by the drinks you actually sell on a hot day.
- Iced latte or iced americano in a 12oz cup: roughly 150g to 200g of cube ice
- Iced drink in a 16oz cup: roughly 250g
- Blended smoothie or frappe: 150g to 250g of crushed or cube ice, depending on your recipe
- Water jugs and display: variable, but it adds up on a terrace
A site selling 120 iced drinks on a hot day is using somewhere between 20kg and 30kg of ice for drinks alone, before display, before jugs, and before the ice that melts in the well while the machine catches up.
Machine output is not the same as machine capacity
An ice machine rated at 25kg per day is rated under test conditions, with cold inlet water and an empty bin. In a hot kitchen in August, with the door opening every two minutes, real output is lower and recovery is slower. The bin is also a buffer, not a store: once it empties at lunchtime, you are drinking from the tap for the rest of the afternoon.
This is why most cafes that own a machine still buy bagged ice through summer. The machine covers the baseline, the delivered ice covers the peak.
Cube, crushed or dry
Cube ice melts slowly and keeps a drink cold without watering it down. It is the default for iced coffee, soft drinks and anything served over ice.
Crushed ice blends faster and takes less out of a blender motor, which matters if smoothies are a real part of your menu rather than an occasional order. It also fills a display cabinet better.
Dry ice is for transport and events, not for drinks. It keeps a cool box at temperature for outside catering, market stalls and deliveries where a fridge is not an option.
A simple ordering rule
Take your busiest hot day in the last two weeks, count the iced drinks, multiply by 200g, add 30 percent for melt and display, then round up to the next full bag. Order that quantity twice a week through summer rather than one large drop, because ice stored badly is ice you throw away.
If you have freezer space for it, a jumbo bag costs less per kilo than retail bags. If you are short on space, retail bags stack in gaps and are easier to rotate.
Storage is where most ice is lost
Ice takes on the smell of whatever sits next to it, so keep it away from open food and anything strongly flavoured. Keep bags sealed, do not refreeze a bag that has slumped, and take out what you need rather than leaving the freezer open while you decide.
Plan the first hot week now
The first genuinely hot week of the year catches out more cafes than the whole of August, because nobody has adjusted their order yet. If your ice comes from us, tell us the week before and we will build the extra into your standing delivery rather than leaving you to call on the day.
Browse the ice range, or open a trade account to see your pricing.