Arctic glaciers off the coast of Greenland are being harvested to make drinks for customers at elite bars in the United Arab Emirates.
Joe Raedle via Getty Images
A company in Greenland called Arctic Ice is harvesting ice from the country’s shrinking glaciers.The company sells the “purest ice in the world” to elite cocktail bars in Dubai to chill drinks.Greenland’s ice sheet has been melting at an alarming pace in recent years.
If you’re really, truly among the world’s elite, you can’t chill your drink with just any old ice. You need the “purest ice in the world,” harvested directly from the rapidly melting glaciers in Greenland.
At least, that’s what Arctic Ice, a startup based in Greenland, is hoping will catch on as it begins selling glacier ice to upscale cocktail bars in Dubai.
“Our pure iceberg ice has little to no taste, ensuring it doesn’t alter the flavor of beverages as it melts, unlike ice made from tap or mineral water,” reads the Arctic Ice website. “Additionally, its structure makes it last longer in drinks, providing a premium experience in bars and restaurants.”
The ice is harvested from icebergs “already naturally detached from the glacier and floating in the Nuuk fjord,” the company claims, making its impact on the environment “very insignificant.”
It is then shipped, still frozen, on cargo vessels to Arctic Ice’s distribution partner, Natural Ice, in Dubai. The cost for a high-end bar to acquire a piece of glacier from Arctic Ice is unclear, as is the cost of a single serving to chill a cocktail.
Representatives for Arctic Ice and Natural Ice did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Arctic Ice, founded in 2022, only recently dispatched its first 20-ton batch of ice to the United Arab Emirates, The Guardian reported. The project was started in part due to cofounder Malik V Rasmussen’s desire to increase Greenland’s economic independence from neighboring Denmark, the outlet reported.
“In Greenland, we make all our money from fish and from tourism,” Rasmussen told The Guardian. “For a long time, I have wanted to find something else that we can profit from.”
Though Rasmussen insists the company has environmental sustainability in mind as it conducts business, critics aren’t sure that’s possible, given the catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis on Greenland’s iconic glaciers.
Researchers have indicated Greenland’s glaciers are melting 7 times as fast as they did in the ’90s and have “passed the point of no return,” dooming the massive ice sheet to disappear.
“Just to get this right 🙂 You are shipping ice from Greenland to Dubai? To be used in drinks? What is the sustainable part in that?” one Instagram commenter said on a recent post by Arctic Ice.
“Shame on you for killing us all a little quicker,” another jabbed. However, comments on the company’s account have been limited.
Arctic Ice isn’t the first to come under fire for using glacier ice to chill drinks. Martha Stewart last year faced sharp, but perhaps justified, criticism when she posted a picture of a small glacier, captured floating near a fjord in Greenland, that was used to chill her cocktails while on board a luxury cruise.
“Martha the ice caps are melting don’t put them in your drink,” one user said in the comments section.
Greta Thunberg, the environmentalist who has probably had nightmares about arctic glaciers chilling the drinks of society’s elite, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.