Inquiries & Help
ESL is a long-time ASCO partner. How would you describe the company?
ESL exclusively distribute industrial cleaning equipment in the UK from the best European suppliers including dry ice machines, industrial vacuum systems, industrial pressure washers, dry steam cleaners and dustless blasting systems. We offer a one-stop shop and a wide selection of industrial cleaning equipment for high reliability and top performance. Our extensive range has been carefully selected for all requirements and applications to reduce time and save costs with health and safety compliance in mind. We are proud to partner with global leading specialists ASCO since 2008 to exclusively distribute dry ice machines in the UK. This Swiss precision engineered technology provides innovative solutions to offer the most advanced dry ice production systems and dry ice blasting machines in the world today.
Which ASCO products are the most successful ones in UK? And why?
We receive regular orders for all ASCO machines and two of our most popular machines in the UK are the P28i dry ice pelletizer and the NANOJET dry ice blaster. The P28i (pictured below) was recently installed by the ESL team with vacuum sealed pipework connecting the CO2 tank to the pelletizer allowing our customer to diversify and expand into dry ice production to produce large volumes of up to 280kg/h. The machine also features internet connectivity using world-leading Siemens technology which allows remote monitoring to enable optimum performance and availability at all times. The NANOJET is the most popular dry ice blaster in the UK at an entry level print point. This cleans without surface erosion and reduces overall cleaning time with dramatic savings in labour time without using hazardous chemicals. This process also reduces downtime with minimal disassembly and eliminates secondary waste streams.
ASCO Dry Ice Pelletizer P28i and ASCO Dry Ice Container AT440
What industries are your main customers when it comes to dry ice production?
We offer our dry ice production machines to our customers in many industries including logistics, food delivery, medical transportation and airlines. These are perfect for the transportation of cold products for a cost effective logistics solution. Food delivery is a massive growth area and dry ice production from ASCO is ideal to transfer meat, fruit and vegetables over long distances to maintain freshness. Dry ice is able to maintain the cold chain through the entire distribution chain, from production to end-user and our ASCO dry ice can be used to package biological samples and temperature-sensitive biomedical/pharmacological products during shipping. Dry ice is also cost effective to transfer food during long haul flights which can help with planning and save wastage.
Do you see any development of rising dry ice consumption? What are the reasons?
We have seen a massive growth in the consumption of dry ice in recent times and we predict that this trend will continue to grow. Advanced ASCO dry ice production solutions can save companies time, money and resources. Dry ice production is environmentally friendly and is the ultimate cooling solution which is safe, non-toxic, colourless, tasteless and odourless. Changing customer habits are driving up the demand for dry ice production including within the food and drink industry with the trend towards cold chain home deliveries. Onsite dry ice production can also reduce waste and decreases costs. Airline catering companies, for instance, use large quantities of dry ice on a daily basis but complex scheduling and changes and delays to routes can lead to inefficiencies and wastage. By using our ASCO dry ice pelletizers, airline caterers can produce exact amounts of dry ice as and when this is required.
Are you busy with many dry ice blasting demonstrations?
We have had more dry ice leads in the last few months than ever before including dry ice blasting demonstrations. Our pro-active sales approach along with increased marketing activity and new initiatives are all helping to drive more leads. We recently visited a food production facility with the ASCOJET 1708 and blasted baked on food deposits with impressive results. The customer was delighted and is now conducting further trials with a view to purchasing this blasting machine over several sites. The image below captures the exterior of the food preparation machine before and after dry ice blasting.
In which industries has dry ice blasting shown the best results?
Dry ice blasting is perfect for many applications as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional blasting methods and is being driven in many cases to comply with health and safety standards and regulations. This is growing in popularity which is economical and non-toxic leaving surfaces dry and abrasion free. We have seen some of the best results in the food and drink industry to provide a dry in-situ cleaning solution that is non-destructive without the use of chemicals. This has blasted hard to remove residues that traditionally take time to clean eliminating the costly shutdown for cleaning. We have also provided customers with dry ice blasting solutions to clean the underneath of fast performing cars following race events and foundries to clean moulds and kernel boxes leaving a high quality finish with a considerable reduction to cleaning time.
How has the impact of Covid 19 in your business?
Like many businesses, we were impacted by the effects of Covid but with careful planning, we have been able to build stronger foundations for the future. We used the furlough scheme in the most difficult months for some of our staff and we are pleased to back up to full strength. During this period, we invested in our marketing to take us to the next step and to generate further leads for our sales team. We feel that the market has picked up significantly over the last few months and we are now receiving customer leads at similar to pre-Covid levels and we are extremely busy working on customer demonstrations. There were restrictions in place for customer visits and demonstrations at the height of Covid but most places are now receiving visits with new policies in place. We are also actively looking to expand our sales team to continue to provide the best possible service to our customers and to help with our strategy and break into new sectors.
Peter Woodward
Marketing Manager at ESL
T: 01543 449259
W: ecoblastsupplies.co.uk
E: infoecoblastsupplies.couk