Pan, the owner of the pond bought 100 blocks of ice and put all the ice into the pond to cool his fish down. Screenshot of Sichuan Observation

Chinese ice-making plants are under pressure to produce more ice as demand both for industrial use and consumer use has surged amid recent high temperatures in many cities across the country.

"This year's orders have more than doubled compared to last year. The machines keep turning all day long, but the demand still exceeds the supply," a manager from a Shanghai-based ice plant surnamed Yu was quoted as saying in an interview with chengdu.cn on Wednesday.

Yu said that at full capacity, the plant can produce 13,500 blocks of ice per day, weighing approximately 600 tons, which can meet half of the city's industrial ice demand.

Yu noted that if the factory is at full production, the daily revenue is expected to reach about 270,000 yuan ($40,065) and the monthly revenue will total 8.1 million yuan. 

Due to the impact of high temperatures, the ice-making this year has consumed more power with costs higher than last year by more than 20 percent, Yu added.

The ice blocks are mainly sent to fresh markets and plastic injection plants for physical cooling in different scenarios. It is worth noting that, due to the epidemic prevention and control measures, nucleic acid sampling sites have become new ice demand points.

In addition to industrial ice, edible ice also saw a significant increase in demand. Data from Chinese food delivery platform Meituan on July 26 showed that over the past 10 days, ice sales nationwide on the platform increased 182 percent compared to the same period last year, with the number of merchants selling edible ice rising nearly 90 percent from last year.

Another online delivery platform Eleme also said that orders of edible ice and ice balls continue to rise. According to the platform's statistics, in the first half of July, convenience stores in Shanghai sold about 300 tons of edible ice products.