Rising summer temperatures have driven up demand for cooling products, pushing ice cream and ice producers into peak season. Companies in Ningbo of Zhejiang province and Xiamen in Fujian province are ramping up production to meet market demand.

At a frozen food trading market in Ningbo, workers have been loading ice cream and popsicles from cold storage for delivery from 7 am to 4 pm daily. Around 12,000 cases are shipped out each day.

A local ice cream company said it is selling about 500,000 yuan (about $69,700) worth of products daily. Another Ningbo-based producer is running its production lines 24 hours a day, turning out about 1 million popsicles per day, with products mainly sold to the Yangtze River Delta region.

Demand for edible ice is also rising rapidly. A producer in Xiamen said its daily output has reached 35 metric tons in July, more than double that of the previous month, with products sold to Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Guangdong and Sichuan provinces.

Industrial ice production has also entered peak season. A Xiamen-based industrial ice maker said daily output has stabilized at over 120 metric tons. After the fishing season starts in August, demand for ice to preserve catches is expected to rise further.