G&B; Cryogénie: "The growth of dry ice production in France is set to rise sharply"

G&B Cryogénie is a long-standing distribution partner of ASCO Kohlensäure AG and was founded in 2005. Since then, G&B has been involved in the development of dry ice cleaning and dry ice production in France. With four sites in France, they have been serving the French and North African markets for several years.

How do you assess the current situation in the French dry ice market and what developments do you expect?
The current situation in the French dry ice market is good at the moment. This is due to two factors: Firstly, industrial activity is currently relatively stable, although the economic crisis could disrupt this stability in the course of 2023. Secondly, the market for dry ice as a product is growing slowly but steadily, given its excellent environmental credentials. In fact, in most cases, dry ice replaces chemical products such as solvents/release agents or the use of environmentally harmful refrigeration units, which significantly improves the environmental footprint of temperature-controlled transport.

These two factors, combined with the great potential of this market, suggest that dry ice production will rise sharply in the coming years. However, it is currently very difficult to quantify this given the fluctuating prices per tonne of CO2 and the highly irregular sourcing we face.

Approximately how much dry ice do you produce per year, and which industries are most relevant to G&B?
We currently produce around 600 tonnes of dry ice across four sites. The three most important sectors are laboratories, logistics platforms and dry ice cleaning. These are followed by viticulture and agriculture, including the inerting of tanks and silos, scenic and visual effects, animal tagging, maintaining temperatures in refrigeration systems in the event of a power cut, etc.

How well known is dry ice in France as an effective coolant, and has the coronavirus pandemic had an impact due to the shipment of vaccines?
One of the main factors behind the slow development of our market is the lack of awareness of dry ice within industry, but also amongst the general public, as people are unfamiliar with the product and therefore rarely use it as a coolant. In fact, many people have heard of it following the vaccine shipments, but this has not changed anything in our daily lives.

We are seeing from various quarters that companies in the drinks, logistics and dry ice sectors are striving to become independent and have their own CO2 sources, or to use existing CO2 more efficiently through recovery solutions. What is the situation at G&B?
We have indeed already touched upon the issue of procurement. For years, we have been struggling with CO2 shortages from so-called traditional sources (refineries and fertiliser plants), which are becoming increasingly acute. There are two ways to counteract these shortages whilst consuming less and producing just as much: CO2 recovery and diversification of CO2 supply sources: Bio-CO₂ from methanisation plants. We are working on these two areas in collaboration with Asco.

G&B Cryogenie and ASCO have been working together for several years. In your experience, what are the advantages of ASCO’s technologies? We have been partners with Asco since 2009 and have tested, purchased and resold a large proportion of Asco’s products, and they all have one thing in common: quality. In addition to Asco’s reliability, service and decades of expertise, Asco’s products are renowned for their quality.