My friend works at a dry ice company. He told me something last Ramadan that completely changed how I think about iftar buffets.
My friend works at a dry ice company. He told me something last Ramadan that completely changed how I think about iftar buffets.
Last Ramadan I was at a large iftar buffet at one of the hotels in Dubai. The spread was massive — seafood, grilled meats, cold desserts, fresh juices. Everything looked perfect and stayed at the right temperature for hours even though hundreds of people were coming and going the entire time.
I mentioned it to my friend afterwards. He works at Ice Jet Dry Ice Manufacturing in Dubai. He smiled and said — "yeah, a lot of that is us."
He explained that during Ramadan, the demand for dry ice spikes significantly across the UAE. Hotels running iftar and suhoor buffets, catering companies serving thousands of guests a night, food delivery services handling their busiest season of the year — all of them rely on dry ice to keep food fresh, safe, and at the right temperature.
"Ramadan is one of our busiest periods. Hotels that serve 500 to 1,000 guests a night for iftar can't afford a single temperature failure. We make sure that doesn't happen."
He told me that dry ice is especially critical for seafood and cold dessert sections — things that spoil quickly if the temperature rises even slightly. Unlike regular ice which melts and creates water that can contaminate food, dry ice keeps everything bone dry and deeply cold without any mess.
I'd eaten at dozens of Ramadan buffets over the years and never once thought about what was keeping that food safe behind the scenes. Now I can't not think about it.
The infrastructure that makes a perfect iftar buffet possible is way more complicated — and interesting — than it looks from the guest side.
Ice Jet Dry Ice Manufacturing supplies hotels, catering companies, and food businesses across Dubai and the UAE with dry ice blocks and pellets — all year round, including peak seasons like Ramadan.
📞 +971-55-5444118 📍 Dubai Industrial Area 4 License No: 1169387 — Dubai Economy & Tourism
