From breweries to chemistry labs, the lack of carbon dioxide can affect business as usual.

SOUTHEASTERN NC — Businesses from bars to restaurants to poultry farms are experiencing the early stages of carbon dioxide shortages, another supply chain issue raised by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last month, Danbury, a major carbon dioxide producer, found a gas leak at its Jackson Dome plant in Mississippi. In turn, many suppliers unable to screen for contaminants in-house are left with undistributable products and in-product inventory.

One affected business is Roberts Oxygen, a Raleigh-based company, whose spokesman said he could not release the names of its suppliers. A source at Roberts Oxygen told PCD that one of the three plants receiving the carbon dioxide was contaminated and another was shut down for routine maintenance, leaving Roberts’ operation at 25% of normal capacity.

Carbon dioxide deficiency has the biggest impact on the beverage industry. Gas requires a higher level of purity for liquid consumption, which means greater efforts to decontamination, and serves as the backbone for breweries.

Roberts distributes CO2 to Wilmington’s Front Street Brewery and Flying Machine Brewing Company. FSB brewmaster Christopher McGarvey said the dramatic drop in carbon dioxide supply was a “catastrophic failure”.

“There’s no way to drastically reduce CO2; it’s fundamental to brewing beer,” McGarvey said.

Front Street, which has four carbon dioxide tanks on the road, has yet to see a cut in its fills, which McGarvey estimates will happen every six weeks, but could face lower supply in the future.

“It’s like watching the storm go in any direction,” McGarvey said.

Carbon dioxide is used during the brewing process and during transport from kegs to bars. McGarvey says that once the beer is brewed, carbon dioxide is used to “clean” the air tanks, allowing the gas to flow into the pockets without interruption for at least an hour.

The CO2 is then used to move the liquid to the bar, where it meets additional CO2 on tap for a great taste. Portable CO2 canisters are sufficient for restaurants that do not brew beer in-house. But breweries like Front Street must rely on trucking — the bigger the operation, the more gas it needs.

Carbon dioxide is used in other industries besides the beverage business, although other local businesses don’t seem to be taking it as seriously.

Water parks and pools can use CO2 instead of an acid mixture to control the pH balance of the water. It can also endanger the plush pads during the height of summer. Although spokespeople for the city and county said PCD carbon dioxide is not used in any water recreation.

Gas in solid form, otherwise known as dry ice, is used in research and pharmaceutical laboratories, as well as in food transportation areas.

The poultry industry — already dealing with national shortages caused by winter storms in the Gulf and a bird flu outbreak in the spring — could see some of the impact on how it ships and packages products without enough dry ice.

Dave Witter is the corporate relations and sustainability manager at Rayford Farms, a family-run poultry farm in Rose Hill, about 45 miles outside of Wilmington. It operates 454 farms in the Southeast along with processing facilities in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

The company occasionally experienced a shortage of CO2, but it did not affect the delivery schedule.

“The lack of CO2 will not cause a supply problem for our customers,” Witter said. We simply pack the product in wet ice until the CO2 deficiency is reduced.

The opposite is true for the research labs at UNCW. According to Jeremy Morgan, chair of the university’s chemistry and biochemistry department, dry ice is essential on most days.

When mixed with some organic solvents, it produces a “cold bath” with a temperature of -78 degrees Celsius. A regular ice bath that doesn’t get below 0 degrees Celsius can sometimes be used instead, Morgan explained.

“We use these baths to control the temperature of reactions in the laboratory,” he said. “Not all projects require a -78 bath, but when a cold bath is required, we perform fluid transfer every day.”

Morgan said alternatives such as liquid nitrogen would be difficult to control and -78 Celsius would be too expensive to purchase.

So far, UNCW has not had a problem getting the dry ice they order from Airgas.

As for the beverage industry, McGarvey says he’s been told Roberts Oxygen will begin supplying carbon dioxide. Front Street bought a few more portable canisters, but began preparing to save as much gas as possible by finding and plugging the little nooks and crannies where gas could escape.

If significant reductions in carbon dioxide levels occur, Front Street says it will stop brewing new beer and use the limited amount of carbon dioxide to sell open casks until it runs out. After that, the business should be based on the sale of food and alcohol.

McGarvey added that he purchased a spinning valve that controls the pressure in the kegs to allow natural carbonation. However, that doesn’t provide a way to move the beer from the barrel to the bar.

Front Street may have to go the British way, McGarvey said, which includes a box, a wish-list item for him, and a hand crank to transport the beer.

“We’re basically talking about medieval technology,” McGarvey said.

Many businesses couldn’t automatically switch to that method, however, and cask-ale would taste different, gambling on customers’ tastes.

Some large breweries are already beginning to recycle carbon dioxide released by their fermentation processes, but that option will remain out of reach for small businesses for the next few years.

According to McGarvey, this is the first time in 12 years of brewing that he has been concerned about a lack of CO2. He said that it is the work that suppliers do behind the scenes to protect the consumer from regional problems.

The production of carbon dioxide is based on the production of ammonia, which is seasonal. The off-season is during the summer, when the food industry sees peak business activity, leading many plants like Roberts’ Oxygen to schedule maintenance in the summer months.

From McGarvey’s perspective, the shortage highlights the problems with a global supply chain built on a just-in-time model. That mode of production dictates production to meet demand rather than to create demand or profit.

“In industry after industry, the dominant approach is short-sighted and unsustainable, and we’re all at the mercy of that,” McGarvey said.

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Reach reporter Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com

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