Do You Hate People Who Chew Ice? One Guy Found A Way To Make Money From The Nasty Habit
When Kyle Burkhalter gets up in the morning, he goes into the kitchen and fixes himself a nice cup of ice.
The 24-year-old director of research for a Web site chews the ice in the car on his way to work in Atlanta. He downs two or three more cups before lunch. He orders ice from drive-thru windows and dips into the office ice machine. Sometimes, his tongue gets so numb he can barely talk to clients.
Still, he munches on. "It's something that you want to do and you think about doing on a constant basis," he says.
Ice isn't just for chilling drinks anymore, or for packing fish and treating sprains. It's a hot snack. Some Sonic Drive-In franchises sell it in cups and in bags to go. Ice-machine makers are competing to make the best chewable ice, with names like Chewblet, Nugget Ice and Pearl Ice. One manufacturer calls the ice-loving South the "Chew Belt."
Generally, more ice is sold during the summer, but people who compulsively chew ice do so whether it's hot or cold outside. One Sonic in Texas sold 13 10-pound bags, at $1.49 apiece, in one week this month.
Sales of machines that make easier-to-chew ice jumped about 23%, to 16,673 units in 2006 from 2003, according to data from the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute. Some ice chewers, including country-music star Vince Gill, have had the machines installed in their homes.
Ice chewers swap tips on Icechewing.com. A recipe for preparing the perfect cup of ice: Use a glass, not a plastic cup. Let crushed ice fuse in water. Drink the water. Shake the cup to loosen the ice. Dig in.
A member, identified as Rambling, responded, "I am drooling," and signed off, "I could chew Alaska."
Todd Robinson started the Web site in late 2003 after a message about ice-chewing on another site he ran generated more than 100 comments. Still, he thought Icechewing.com would be a flop. "I wasn't going to keep it that long, but then these people are really sincere," he says. Today, the site has 3,192 registered members and gets about 1,000 hits a day, he says.
[Via - Business Opportunities Blog]
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