The supply crisis in carbon dioxide is still with us, even if the pressure has eased slightly from the height of the summer months.
One essential CO2 output in the food and beverage space is dry ice, which is used in cold chain management, in food processing to prevent spoilage and for cleaning of production lines and more. In recent times its usage by supermarkets for home deliveries has also grown – a development that came to the fore during the Covid pandemic lockdowns, when home deliveries surged.
Not surprisingly, all this activity means that demand for dry ice is on the up, even as CO2 supply issues continue. This has led to some interesting developments in the space, as food companies wrestle with the best way to guarantee cost-effective supply.
While the focus here isn’t the CO2 supply as such, the other part of the dynamic that crops up with dry ice right now, as with all CO2 supply, is the fact that the US has enacted legislation – the Inflation Reduction Act – to combat the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and so provided compelling incentives for geologic CO2 sequestration rather than selling carbon dioxide in the merchant market.
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