1. Did the extended pharma orders for vaccine shipments change your daily production at Fraser Valley Dry Ice or what is your main drive of growth?
Our main drive of growth has been Cannabis operations, and food processing. The pharma demand, although nice for our business, is not something we have built into our business plan, for all we know the next vaccine coming out can be stored at room temperature. We did not consider the Covid contract at all for the second machine.
2. We understand that the sudden extended demand of the pharma industry has not been the reason for placing the order for the second dry ice machine. Did other business opportunities open up as well?
We want to partner with larger food distribution companies, however; although we love the BP420i our business decision was to obtain redundancy before we on board those new accounts.
Having a second machine will give us the comfort to start these larger relationships knowing there will not be an issue if one of the machines goes down, we will still be able to fulfill our orders. In short the second machine provides us redundancy to protect our existing and future customers from any supply issues.
3. Can you put the dry ice produced for vaccine shipments into relation to the other industries’ requirements?
The Pharma orders really did not change much for us, just a small amount of additional revenue and great marketing for our business. We are also proud to be part of the Covid-19 vaccine distribution efforts.
4. Will the second BP420i be installed at the same production center?
The second BP420i will be right beside the first BP420i in the same location.
5. What is the geographical area you cover with your deliveries of dry ice in Canada?
We cover all of Western Canada, however, given the nature of dry ice our strength is within our provincial borders.
Picture Caption: Paul Thomson during the production of dry ice slices