One of the best products that we discovered at the 2015 ICAST show in Orlando was the Arctic Ice Cooler Packs. Arctic Ice™ is a new type of rugged ice-substitute cooler packs that maintain low temperatures longer than ice or “blue gel” products. The active ingredient is a plant-oil derived “phase-change material” (PCM). Arctic Ice is reusable, non-toxic and biodegradable and is not derived from petroleum products or alcohol like most other cooler inserts. Arctic Ice™ Alaskan Series freezes at 1˚C (33.8˚F) and efficiently keeps food and drinks chilled much longer than the same volume of ice. Arctic Ice™ Tundra Series freezes at -15˚C (+5˚F) and maintains a consistent freezer temperature and is a suitable dry ice alternative.
We picked some of them up and had been using them on our Fort Myers Dolphin and Manatee tours all summer with fantastic results. We wanted to try couple of different temperature packs as you can see in the copy above so we started using the Alaskan series and they performed remarkably. They really did keep the cooler as cold as if we had ice in it with just two of the larger size Alaska series packs. We then tried the new temperature range called chillin brew which is supposed to keep the temperature at 28°, and while it wasn’t obvious right away that there is any temperature range difference that we noticed on our Ft Myers fishing charters, the big difference was when we returned. The Alaskan series had completely thawed after about six hours but was still cold, and the chillin brew series were still about 50% frozen after the same amount of time. While of course we couldn’t physically feel the difference between the two obviously the Chillin Brew series were colder as advertised due to the fact that they were still partially frozen. One of the biggest advantages we saw over using ice was significantly less weight for the same amount of cooling,which in a large capacity marine cooler can be significant.
This is one of those great products that actually exceeds the advertising claims by a wide margin and they really do keep everything much colder than ice without having to deal with the water and the added weight of ice versus the cooler packs.We used them on both our Fort Myers inshore fly fishing charters and our Fort Myers Tarpon fishing charters with great success the summer.
Complete information on the entire line of fine Arctic ice products can be found on their website at Arctic Ice Cooler Packs
