The Vapor Point: The Rise of Ice

Peter de Jager is a provocative Speaker, Writer and Consultant. His primary focus in on how we manage change, technology and the future.

In addition to speaking at conferences worldwide, he's also written monthly columns for Municipal World and Computing Canada.

His goal is always to question what we think is so, and in so doing perhaps open up new opportunities.

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In 1803 an epidemic of Yellow Fever swept though the West Indies and a supply of ice was needed to alleviate the suffering. In Saugus, MA, several thousand miles north of the sweltering Caribbean climate, a Mr. Frederick Tudor came up with an audacious plan. He'd ship ice from Massachusetts to the Island of Martinique. Extracting some 200-300 tons of ice from a local pond, he hauled it on teams to Charlestown, MA where it was packed and insulated with straw on the brigantine "Favorite" and then sailed south to the West Indies.

As bizarre as this idea was to his neighbors, who considered him a bit of an eccentric, Mr. Tudor was in good company. Throughout history Ice was always considered a lavish luxury. Through the ages we’ve harvested it where or when it was cold and hauled it, at great expense, to when or where it was warm and the wealthy could afford it. 

While this first attempt at intercontinental ice shipping was a financial disaster, it was also the humble beginnings of the North American Ice Harvest industry. In the coming decades, Mr. Tudor established Ice Houses in Kingston, Havana, New Orleans, Savannah, Calcutta and Madras to name only a few. Ultimately Mr. Frederick Tudor became known in America as the Ice King.

The Ice Harvesting industry peaked in 1886 when more than 25 million tons of ice were harvested in the United States. Why did it peak and then decline? Why didn't it continue to grow? Two reasons. First, there weren't enough sources of good, clean, unpolluted ice to meet the growing demand. Second, technical advances in refrigeration were making it possible to make the ice directly, rather than to harvest it from a natural resource in the winter months and then store it throughout the year. In other words? It became possible to produce ice directly at much lower cost than it was for us to extract it from the traditional supplier, in this case Mother Nature. In a sense, the foundation for a future Vapor Point was initiated in the ice harvesting industry around 1886. From 1886 onwards, ice harvesting from natural sources declined. 

While the somewhat abrupt transition from the harvesting of natural ice, to the manufacturing of ice, is an example of a Vapor Point, it fails because of familiarity to impress. We are all too familiar with the Industrial Revolution and its implications. We're no longer impressed when a human invention of some sort, replaces human labor. We've explored that story, and in a way, unfortunately, it's become boring.

The ice story doesn't end with the demise of ice harvesting; it's only the start of a pattern which we expect will continue at a growing rate into the future.

The ability to make ice on demand, and to acquire it more cheaply than through the traditional method of harvesting, resulted in a common enough phenomenon… increased usage and new uses. 

Admittedly this observation is childishly obvious, yet it’s worthy of attention and encapsulation, if only to highlight the positive feedback loop it contains.

When something useful gets cheap enough to use, usage increases, thereby increasing the market for it, and the economies of scale and competition for the increased market, which in turn drives the price down further making it even more accessible. 

The paths towards better technologies are paved by the profit motive. The increased market for Ice created the competition which drove the development of new and improved, cooling processes. The first companies to purchase refrigeration units were the brewing companies, starting in 1870 at S. Liebmann's Sons Brewing Company in Brooklyn, NY. By 1891 nearly every brewing company in America used commercial refrigeration. From there, it expanded throughout the food industry and found a place in every aspect of food processing and elements of the growing pharmaceutical industry.

As with any new emerging technology, the first refrigeration units were expensive. Operating on vapor-compression technologies, with less than perfect gas seals and requiring steam engines as the motive force, they were also inherently dangerous. 

The chemicals used as refrigerants, were volatile and if inhaled, extremely toxic. The witches brew which made commercial ice possible included sulfur dioxide, methyl and ethyl chlorides, isobutene, and ammonia. Deaths associated with the use of refrigeration units were not that unusual. It was dangerous work to keep things cool.

Obviously, this technology was not yet ready for the individual consumer. This was recognized by Cassier's Magazine in 1901 with a succinct note, "The facts as they stand at present preclude the possibility of small domestic ice or refrigerating plants." 

The interesting thing about this quote is the use of the words "at present". With these words they, unlike so many other prognosticators of the future, accepted that the constraints of cost and safety might collapse in the future.

At this point in time if you wanted the benefit of ice in the home, you bought an ice box and had the ice delivered to your home. The inconveniences were many. From making sure you displayed the ice card to indicate the quantity of desired ice from the Ice Man, to making sure that you drained the drip pan for the melting ice on a regular basis.

At best, the ice box merely kept a small quantity of food cool, and then only temporarily. Unlike today's fridge it wasn't cold enough to actually make ice for household consumption – ‘Scotch on the Rocks’ was NOT a household beverage. 

The ice box was an expensive luxury to maintain, but the benefits were obviously significant enough to support a thriving Home Ice delivery industry. Based upon various published memoirs, the cost of delivered ice varied considerably. Here is an excerpt from an essay by Ron Filion a San Francisco Historian; 

“By August 1850, shortly after the Gold Rush of 1849, ice was being imported from Boston to San Francisco. One early pioneer wrote about seeing an ice cart with the sign, "Boston Lake Ice," with ice being sold about 30 cents per pound. In 1851, large quantities were being imported by Ferdinand Vassault and others with the cost of ice around 12 1/2 cents per pound. In 1854, the Russian-American Commercial Company brought the first cargo of ice from Sitka, Alaska, and the price dropped down to 5 cents per pound.”

If we assume 25 lbs a week as a base consumption rate (a 3 gallon block of ice), then the cost of household ice ranged from a high of $390/annum to a low of $62/annum when ice was in abundant supply. Ice consumption could range significantly higher than 25 lbs/week. Ice Cards used to inform the ice man how much ice to drop off on his weekly rounds typically indicated 4 amounts ranging from 0 up to 100lbs of ice. 

While commercial refrigerators were inappropriate for home use, innovators were highly motivated to iron out the cost and safety issues. The changes alluded to by Cassier's Magazine became a reality in the early 1920s. By 1925 the major technical problems were solved and the price had dropped to about $500 for a Frigidaire. By 1928, Frigidaire had sold more than 1 Million units. By 1933 the technology had advanced to the point where Frigidaire could successfully market the "Meter Miser" for less than $100. In less than 10 years, the world had changed.

The change was dramatic. The ice harvesting industry was dead. While Ice delivery would never really cease, there is still a thriving Ice delivery industry alive and well today, the home delivery of ice was vaporized by the domestic refrigerator. 

Excluding the period of World War II, it took a little over a decade from start to finish for the majority of homes to switch to electric refrigerators. It was then a relatively short step from household refrigerators to household air conditioning. The impact on society was not just an increased level of comfort and changed eating habits. The ability of the consumer to directly modify their environment changed the social dynamics of the Western World. 

While the above statement sounds like marketing hype, if anything it’s an understatement. Bernard Nagengast, author of "It's a Cool Story" published in the May 2000 issue of Mechanical Engineering magazine wrote that with air-conditioning; 

"Work and play are possible in any climate in any type of building that an architect can dream of. Life is bearable in the tropics or the Arctic. In the United States alone, year-round air conditioning after 1950 reversed a century-long pattern of migration out of southern cities. From 1990 through 1995, in excess of two million people moved to the southern states, a population boom that would not have been possible without the existence of air conditioning."

In the period from about 1870 to 1890 the industrial refrigeration market segment experienced a Vapor Point when there was a significant move (most noted in the brewing market) from ice to chemical cooling. 

It took approximately 100 years to totally switch all natural ice buyers to chemical refrigeration buyers. Each industrial segment that made use of ice in industrial quantities was faced with different implementation problems and varying degrees of need to convert. 

By the mid-1920’s to the mid-1930’s the technology had matured enough to provide a reasonably safe and reliable domestic unit. The result was a Vapor Point in the upper economic levels of the home consumer market.. This Vapor Point dramatically reduced market volumes and profitability in the ice delivery industry. From that point forward until the 1950’s (within most of North America) segment after segment of the ice industry declined as chemical refrigeration technology took over. Each targeted segment that shifted to the new technology represented a “Vapor Point” for the product/market segment.

So far, we might choose to define the “Vapor Point” as nothing more than a point in time where one product rises in popularity while another product falls out of favor. If that was all there was to the concept, it would be pretty boring and hardly useful enough to steer our business and manufacturing activities. 

The Vapor Point is much more than just the rise and fall of products. A Vapor Point represents a shift of control from one market segment to another. In the case of ice, two different types of shifts took place.

The consumers took control of the ice manufacturing process away from the company which used to produce the ice. There is no longer any profitability in the home delivery of ice. No amount of money spent increasing the efficiency of a home ice delivery business would enable such a business to succeed as a going concern. Even if they reduced all costs to the consumer and were able reduce all business costs to zero, there could still not build a business case for such an operation. 

The reason home refrigerators succeeded is primarily that this innovation enables the consumer to achieve something that ice delivery cannot deliver. Home refrigeration gives the consumer the ability to control temperature. One consequence of that is ice, the other is that with better temperature control, food spoilage is significantly reduced. This in turn reduces the numbers of trips each week to the grocer.

The other shift that took place was the creation of the refrigerator industry. It didn’t so much ‘replace’ home ice delivery; instead it made ice delivery irrelevant. 

The Vapor Point is concerned with why, how and when these ‘shifts of control’ take place. As well as how the industry being replaced might respond to such a shift.

Many ice companies were wise enough to make the shift. The Sarjeant Company Limited, of Orilla, Ont, Canada is an example of a company which made the shift to modern techniques. They began their ice harvesting business in 1905, long after the peak of the industry. Their original source of natural ice was Kempenfelt Bay, and stored their harvest in sawdust until it was time to deliver it to local homes.

At the height of the season they employed between 200-300 men harvest first by hand, and then later by steam powered saws. Shipments were delivered by freight car to Buffalo, New York to the Buffalo Ice Co.

Rather than ignore the trend towards manufactured ice they installed their first refrigeration unit in 1947 at a cost of $22,000. In 1966 they ceased all ice operations and devoted their energies to supplying air conditioning and heating systems.

Obviously there were ice companies who failed to make the transition because they saw themselves as only being in the business. When home ice delivery vanished, so did they.

© 2007 Peter de Jager – Peter is a keynote speaker focused on management issues, with special attention to issues relating to change management. You can contact him at  pdejager@technobility.com

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