The US food and beverage sector continues to be the strongest market for carbon dioxide (CO2). Maura Garvey of Intelligas Consulting, who files her annual report on the US CO2 market in this issue, says that keeping our beverages bubbly and our foodstuffs cold, represents over 70% of the demand today for merchant CO2.
With solid growth of about 2.5% per year, the food and beverage sector is a reliable driver for the CO2 business.
Outside of the traditional carbonation and chilling applications, however, there are factors at play across the nation that are pushing new types of demand for carbon dioxide. One of these is the use of CO2 in greenhouse growing. Per the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) most recent Census of Horticultural Specialties (2014), horticulture operations sold a total of $13.8bn, up 18% since the last census in 2009. Of that total, food crops under protection (greenhouses) represented $797m in sales, and that amount represents a 44% jump from 2009 levels.
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