Have you ever wondered where ice cubes come from? Ice is produced in large blocks and chopped into more usable pieces by a skilled ice maker. At the height of summer, the business is all hands on deck. Many different sized blocks of ice are needed for different industries, from restaurants and cafes to shaved ice stores. We caught up with one ice expert to watch the magic happen.

The truck door opens.

A forklift elevates the truck and its 150 kilogram cargo, the equivalent of two grown adults. But the cargo is ice, in huge blocks, which is lifted off the truck and thrown on the chopping block.

It’s sawn neatly into equal pieces by an electric saw.

The cubes are then prised apart with a palette knife. The ice is starting to melt ever so gently by this point, and needs to get into the freezer stat, to bring its temperature back down. Ice makers complete 20 blocks a day.

Tang Shih-ching
FTV reporter
The freezer we’re in now is kept at a constant temperature of minus 10 degrees. It’s really cold! We can see here ice cubes of all different sizes, which have widely differing uses.

The ice blocks you often see in shaved ice shops are 13 cubic centimeters, and 2,000-3,000 bags are sold a day. Ice cubes for whisky shots are just 5 cubic centimeters. To stop them from melting, they spend an extra 3-4 hours in the freezer.

The “hygiene ice” used in drinks stores comes in 7 kilogram bags. At least 100-200 bags are sold each day. At the height of summer, an ice cube retailer can make an average turnover of NT$75,000 per month.

Lin Chou-hsu
Ice cube retailer
Of course, it grows by 5-10% each year. In the last week or two, we’ve been a bit busier. There’s the traditional shaved ice shops and drinks stores, and then we work with some restaurants and bars. In the summer, we serve more than 100 clients, probably. When it gets really busy, there’s no time to even go to the toilet!

This ice business all rests on the shoulders of the boss. He passes the chopped ice on to the delivery man, who tries to shave every second off his journey. In these overheated weeks, this chilly work is thriving.

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