Ice cube tray manufacturer wins award for irretrievable ice cubes
For over 30 years, ice cube tray manufacturers have been engaged in a race to develop a container from which frozen water can never be extracted. Today UK company Pro-Plastic has been recognised for making the first container from which ice cubes cannot be retrieved, irrespective of the cunning and skill of the users. âTwenty years ago we were appointed by Gillette to develop a plastic packaging product to prevent razor refills from being opened by anyone without a decent angle grinder and we succeeded quickly,â said Alan Hardwick, managing director of Pro-Plastic. âLater we entered other un-openable product markets, such as scissor packaging and SD cards, but we never thought that our technology could be applied to ice cube trays.â Using NASA research into deep space temperature measurement and data from the US Geological Survey, top scientists from Pro-Plastic were able to develop a domestic ice-cube tray based on an extremely rigid, glass-fibre reinforced polypropylene that cannot be bent by the application of manual or mechanical force on the outside and a non-release coating on the inside that bonds frozen water permanently to the surface. âWe knew that most ice cube trays were brilliant at retaining their contents even after heating-up with warm water or undertaking the cube-releasing wrist challenge which was always guaranteed to result in the brittle fracture of the tray and ligament sprains for the unfortunate users,â added Hardwick, âbut our new design which locks frozen cubes into the trays until the contents have completely melted has surpassed our greatest expectation.â Pro-Plastic has organised a celebratory party for its staff and customers at its prestigious London headquarters. âWe will be serving some lovely warm champagne to our guests,â confirmed Hardwick. âWe wanted it to be chilled, but you know how difficult that would be.â