If you need even more reasons to buy Minneapolis-made Ace Ice, consider the following:

• Unlike our competitors, we don’t use reverse-osmosis — a process that wastes anywhere between 1.6 and 2.7 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of pure water.
• We use top-grade water that originates in Minnesota’s Northern Woods. The City of Minneapolis has been listed for many years as one of the Top 10 municipalities for having the cleanest water.
• Ace Ice has invested heavily in a process that ensures we catch any foreign substances during production to avoid product recalls, which is a waste of several resources — including water, packaging, labor and electricity.
• Our state-of-the-art process — the most environmentally friendly for the industry — uses roll stock to drastically reduce waste. Heat sealing avoids using metal or plastic closing devices.
• Unlike many ice manufacturers who “frost” their ice bags, Ace Ice uses clear bags — not only so customers can see the product but also to reduce the amount of printed ink, which is harder to dispose.

We can’t help but be mechanically minded at the Shamrock Group. Between our machinery and a large fleet of trucks, we’re proud as peacocks to be thought of as grease monkeys.

And with all this machinery, we strive for maximum output and efficiency with everything that … well, goes “Whirrrr.”

• Shamrock Group’s 90,000 square-foot plant uses no natural gas, propane or fuel oil to heat this facility. Rather, we developed a highly efficient process whereby we reclaim heat from our ice manufacturing compressors to heat the entire building.
• We’re considered an “Xcel Primary Energy User” — which means that we purchases only “raw” power. It’s up to us to convert it to useable power. Purchasing our energy in this manner reduces waste and our overhead … savings we can pass on to our customers.
• If the surrounding community needs additional power, the Shamrock Group responds. When necessary, Xcel will call on us to decrease our energy usage. We can shut down 100% for 6-10 hours by depending on our well insulated facilities and backup energy source — a water-cooled, low RPM generator.
• Rather than to use fuel or electricity to keep product frozen during deliveries, the Shamrock Group conserves energy by using glycol-refrigerated cold plates within most of its delivery trucks. Electricity is used only during non-delivery hours to rejuvenate the freezers.
• The Shamrock Group has developed a monitoring system that can track how delivery personnel are driving — how fast, how quickly they accelerate, decelerate, etc. Not only does this system monitor driver safety, it also provides data regarding fuel efficiency.
• All trucks are turned off during delivery to conserve fuel.
• All tires are checked daily on delivery fleet vehicles to ensure optimum fuel efficiency.