By 1870 Joseph Marr acquired his first fishing vessel and in the fifteen years that followed purchased a further 6 before moving, with his fleet and many of the team, to Fleetwood in 1896.

In 1908 The Fylde Ice & Cold Storage Company was established and J Marr and Son took some shares. Its purpose was to manufacture ice for fish merchants and crushed ice for trawlers.

By 1927, the demand for cold storage was increasing so Fylde Ice built its first cold store to offer cold storage services to fish merchants.

In 1987, following a trip to America and an entrepreneurial spirit, an ice machine was bought to enable the production of packaged ice for the wholesale and food service market – a big step with no customers, but Party Ice was sold for the first time! Ten years later, The Fylde Ice & Cold Storage Company had become a subsidiary of the now J Marr Ltd and Polarcube in Newark was bought. This allowed for further development of packaged ice manufacturing, and provided an entrance into the retail market.

Continued growth and investment led to the purchase of the site in South Kirkby, West Yorkshire in 2006 and became the Head Office Site. A new ice factory was built, and cold storage services were expanded to third party customers.

A company rebrand and streamline in 2010 split ice manufacturing and cold storage services into their own two separate brands within the J Marr Group, The Ice Co and The Ice Co Storage & Logistics. 

Now, six generations on and with over 20 years’ experience in the supply chain, sister company The Ice Co is Europe’s largest manufacturer of ice products and The Ice Co Storage & Logistics offers bespoke third party cold storage and distribution solutions nationwide.

Group investment, acquisition and improved IT systems means we now operate from 6 sites across the UK, of which 4 are dedicated to cold storage, with over 51,000 pallet spaces and our own modern fleet of temperature controlled vehicles.