By 1870 Joseph Marr acquired his first fishing vessel and in the fifteen
years that followed purchased a further 6 before moving, with his fleet and
many of the team, to Fleetwood in 1896.
In 1908 The Fylde Ice & Cold Storage Company was established and J
Marr and Son took some shares. Its purpose was to manufacture ice for fish
merchants and crushed ice for trawlers.
By 1927, the demand for cold storage was increasing so Fylde Ice built
its first cold store to offer cold storage services to fish merchants.
In 1987,
following a trip to America and an entrepreneurial spirit, an ice machine was
bought to enable the production of packaged ice for the wholesale and food
service market – a big step with no customers, but Party Ice was sold for the
first time! Ten years
later, The Fylde Ice & Cold Storage Company had become a subsidiary of the
now J Marr Ltd and Polarcube in Newark was bought. This allowed for further
development of packaged ice manufacturing, and provided an entrance into the
retail market.
Continued
growth and investment led to the purchase of the site in South Kirkby, West
Yorkshire in 2006 and became the Head Office Site. A new ice factory was built,
and cold storage services were expanded to third party customers.
A company rebrand and streamline in 2010 split ice manufacturing and
cold storage services into their own two separate brands within the J Marr
Group, The Ice Co and The Ice Co Storage & Logistics.
Now, six
generations on and with over 20 years’ experience in the supply chain, sister
company The Ice Co is Europe’s largest manufacturer of ice products and The Ice
Co Storage & Logistics offers bespoke third party cold storage and
distribution solutions nationwide.
Group investment, acquisition and improved IT systems means we now
operate from 6 sites across the UK, of which 4 are dedicated to cold storage,
with over 51,000 pallet spaces and our own modern fleet of temperature
controlled vehicles.