The story of the Hungarian brothers behind Artificer craft ice is certainly not unfamiliar to those in the hospitality industry. The business, which grew from a family conversation to a thesis and then from a garage business, has become an inescapable player in the market in just over 2 years. We talked to one of the owners, Ádám Galambos, about the initial difficulties and the situation of bar culture in Hungary.
The aforementioned thesis was written back in 2017, while Adam and his brother Máté were doing some relatively quick market research by visiting cocktail bars. After investigating the quality of ice available at the time, they started hawking a 5×5 cm piece of Styrofoam in new wave bars to see if they would be interested in a fully transparent ice of this size. At the time, nobody on the Hungarian market was doing this. They also asked what else they were missing, what they were satisfied/dissatisfied with, what would be needed.
The feedback clearly indicated that there would be a huge demand for their products, so in 2018 they installed their first Japanese ice block making machine in their parents“ garage. ”Our vision was to produce ice that would be popular not only with bars and hotels, but also with more upmarket corner cafes. The only problem was that we had no idea what to make and how to make it,“ says Adam with a laugh. ”As this is not only a very narrow profession, but also a very closed one, participants were reluctant to share knowledge. The biggest help we got was YouTube and an 800-page American book."
Once the business is up and running
After a few months of experimentation, they started delivering almost immediately and the number of partners started to grow significantly. At that time, they were producing around 200 kg of ice per day, which has now grown to more than 3 tonnes per day. This was, of course, unparalleled in the garage of their family home, and in 2019 they moved to a workshop in the 11th district, and from there to Budaörs in 2021. Here they were joined by their youngest brother Bendegúz. With him, the team of 3 grew to 10, and they expanded their product range to include several types of handcrafted ice. In addition to completely transparent cubic ice, they also added spherical, cylindrical, diamond-shaped and coloured ice. As proof of their success, they have not spent a single forint on marketing for 4 years and now have over 300 partners throughout Budapest, as well as Kifli.hu and For Culinaris you can now enjoy their products at home.
What makes Artificer ice better and why?
The answer lies, among other things, in the cooling technique. Very simply put, while the ice you buy at petrol stations, for example, is made by freezing the water from the outside to the inside, it is therefore damaged in its structure, which makes it opalescent. In order to make the ice completely transparent, the tap water is passed through a water softener, which removes the chlorine and scale, and the impurities are then removed by an industrial filter. The continuously circulating water is then frozen using controlled sub-cooling, which forces the impurities and air bubbles out of the ice. One block weighs 150 kilos and takes 3 to 4 days to cool, before being cut by hand. The 5×5 cm size is based on an American model, as it fits comfortably in a standard whiskey glass. Thanks to the crystal clarity and thus the high quality, the ice melts more slowly, so it doesn't water the drink, it just cools it.
At first they thought only about craft ice, but soon realised that it would not generate enough traffic even if they shipped it all over the country, so they started selling plain, gas-station bagged ice like the competition. This of course did not go unnoticed, the giant competitor in the market did everything it could to make it impossible for them to operate. In the long run, however, they have not been caught out and are now operating relatively smoothly.
There is no impossible
Since they started, they have become so routine that they can meet the craziest requests, and they also provide advice to businesses in Pécs and Szeged. “We are happy to help others because I think this is a big enough market for us to fit together. One of the most exciting requests in recent years was from the Hungarian Skating Association, who asked us to freeze two different skates in a block. Funnily enough, the lighter an object is, the harder it is to ice because there is no weight to pull it down - I'm thinking of flower petals or fruit slices, for example. We've had a variety of subject shoots, and for the very extreme requests we ask an ice sculptor friend for help.
What makes it difficult is that we can only experiment by freezing the 150-litre block, which is not only time-consuming, but also consumes a lot of energy in every respect. Once the High Note Skybar we wanted to make coloured ices and the idea of food colouring came up. Since we could only see the process from above, everything seemed to be fine. Then, when we took the finished block out, we saw that the dye was only “stuck” to the top because it couldn't dissolve properly in the water. Our red ice is now made with hibiscus tea and the blue with butterfly peas.”
The present and the future
On the morning of a typical day, the cars are loaded with the bagged ice that was unloaded and crushed the day before and the couriers set off to their respective addresses. Meanwhile, the ice processing begins at the plant. “Bendegúz has very good ideas about the process, Máté is good at coordinating colleagues, and I mainly handle negotiations and orders. We are constantly on the move, the phone rings all day, but we are still full of plans. In a year or two, we want to move to Taranto and set up a much more sustainable business. We have managed to get a plot of land there through a tender, where we could get water from the well and have solar panels, so that is the focus of the project now. We also run workshops all the time because many people don't know how to make the most of the potential of our products, so education is also a matter of our heart. I think we're going in a very good direction with the local bar culture, so there's a lot of potential that we haven't exploited yet!
If you want to see Artificer products in the glasses of your home or bar immediately, on this website you will find all the important information!
