Does your ice cream display cabinet struggle to maintain its temperature?

“The average American consumes more than 22 pounds of ice cream and related frozen desserts per year” declared IDFA (International Dairy Foods Association). Vanilla, Cookies N’ Cream, Mint Chocolate Chip seems to be some of the most loved ice cream flavors, even though Americans like to test odd and unusual flavors too. Some examples? Lobster, cilantro lime, and grass!

Anyway, odd or traditional, it doesn’t matter! Ice cream is loved worldwide, so much so that countries have set specific days to celebrate it, such as 24 March in Europe and every third Sunday in July in the United States.

But who actually invented ice cream? Apparently, this food has ancient roots and belongs to customs and traditions of cultures very different from each other. Let’s think about Greeks in 500 BC, who loved to fix refreshing drinks with a little lemon, honey, pomegranate juice, and snow or ice, or about Arabs in Sicily, who used to mix snow from Mount Etna with fruit juices. It seems, however, to be the wonderful Florence in the 16th century that can claim the invention of “modern” ice cream, meaning that made with milk, cream, and eggs.

Technological progress and social changes, then, allowed ice cream to evolve over the centuries. After the end of World War I, when commercial and continuous electrical refrigerators become available, the ice cream industry rose quickly, enabling the creation of cheap and easy to produce ice creams, first in the United States and then all over the world.

Since then, ice cream has become one of the most appreciated food, and… guess what? It’s hard to believe but it knows no season!

According to research conducted in Italy by Deliveroo, 2020 was not only the year of the pandemic but also the year of ice cream! Ice cream home deliveries, in fact, increased last year by 113%, and in particular, orders exploded between September and November, recording an extraordinary +312%.

In light of this data, we understand that ice cream display cabinets are not just simple furnishing elements for an ice cream parlour, but also highly technological refrigeration systems, which are fundamental for guaranteeing the preservation of ice cream at the right temperature, so much so that their breakage or malfunction could cause considerable economic damage to ice cream makers and vendors.

For example, ice cream display cabinets need to maintain a temperature between -12°C and -15°C in order to function properly and preserve ice cream and its quality. But, over the years, vibrations, deterioration of gaskets, acidity, and alteration of the refrigerant gas and/or lubricant can lead to the formation of small cracks in the rubber or metal components of refrigeration systems. Refrigerant gas escapes from these micro-leaks, causing a drastic reduction in the efficiency of the systems themselves. For this specific reason, it happens quite often that refrigerated display cabinets struggle to maintain the temperature required to properly preserve ice cream.

So, what should be done in such cases? Replace the ice cream display case with a new one? Absolutely not! There are additives known as leak stop on the market which, once inserted in the system, solve this problem, restoring the original efficiency of refrigerated display cases.

Extreme Ultra White is the leak stop developed by Errecom’s R&D department for refrigeration systems with hermetic compressors, such as domestic and industrial refrigerators, wine cellars, and, of course, ice cream display cabinets! Extreme Ultra White is polymer-free, which means it permanently seals refrigerant gas leaks up to 0.3 mm, without reacting to moisture or oxygen.

Specifically formulated for refrigerators working with R600, R290, and R134a, Extreme Ultra White is safe for both operator and system and significantly reduces compressor noise. Often used to solve the problems described above, Extreme Ultra White is actually highly recommended as a preventive measure: once inserted in the ice cream display case, in fact, it keeps circulating in the system’s refrigeration lines, acting promptly in the event of any micro-leaks developing.