Long Island Ice & Fuel, of Riverhead, continues to provide service across Long Island

Chris Conklin possesses vast chunks of knowledge about — and experience in — the ice business.

As a 12-year-old, Conklin got his initiation into the world of frozen waters working weekends and summers in his family’s Riverhead business, Long Island Ice & Fuel. His duties ranged from bagging the solid matter to helping out on deliveries with different truck drivers, including his mother, who also was the bookkeeper.

"The business was much, much smaller, and my entire family was involved; my mom, dad, older brother and older sister and, to some extent, my younger sister," said Conklin. "Everyone wore a lot of hats."

Forty years ago, he joined the operation full-time. And for more than a quarter-century, Conklin and his brother Kyle have led the company together. Chris, 58, is vice president and in charge of distribution and marketing, while Kyle, 64, is the firm’s president and oversees production. They are equal business partners.

At various times in its 144-year history, the six-generation business has navigated slippery slopes, Chris Conklin said. In the early years, it had operated eight plants, which were spread throughout Long Island, but as commercial refrigeration came into its own, business went downhill.

And in the 1950s, when Long Islanders started converting from coal to fuel for home-heating, the family added fuel distribution to its repertoire. The expansion enabled the company to leverage a growth market and help offset the seasonal downturn in ice sales, Conklin said.

Years later, in the 1980s, when two of its major markets — fishing and farming, especially spinach and broccoli growers, began their steady decline, "we once again reinvented ourselves," he said.

Its turnaround involved allocating more space in its traditional block plant to the production and storage of cubed ice. And "revenues have been growing ever since," said Conklin.

Conklin recently spoke to Newsday about his family’s ice and fuel business. Answers have been edited for space.

How does the business break down between ice and fuel?

90% ice versus 10% fuel, including kerosene sales to mobile homes.

We have 1,200 customers for ice, about 600 for fuel.

When are the ice and fuel seasons?

The traditional ice season is Memorial Day to Labor Day, with July Fourth being the pinnacle.

Fuel typically starts to pick up in September and peaks between January and February.

How do you handle distribution in the ice season?

We ramp up to 75 workers and drop to 20 in the offseason. In the season, we use our own 20 delivery trucks and lease five more.

What’s your marketing area?

We sell from the Cross Island in Nassau to Montauk and Shelter Island in Suffolk. We have a supplier distributing our products in Manhattan and another in Queens.

Who are your primary ice customers?

They include Handy Pantry, 7-Eleven and other convenience stores, beverage stores, bars, restaurants, nightclubs and Yankee Stadium.

Your plant’s size?

We have a 16,000-square-foot facility, including a freezer and four production lines.

How much ice do you produce?

We produce 150 tons of ice and can have 1,000 tons, or 2 million pounds, of ice in storage at our factory.

What about ice carvings?

We sub out ice carvings to a local carver for complex designs but, depending on the time of year, we handle some in-house, as in ice luges, a party favorite [for serving chilled beverages].

Where do you learn what’s hot in ice?

We listen to our customers, and because of the internet, they see what they’d like. Industry conventions are another good source.

But with so many varieties of ice, including nugget, flaked, et cetera, it’s hard to keep up, so we go with the growing trends.

How do you distinguish your ice?

We strive for brand awareness and promote our ice as a food product as opposed to just another bag of ice. Packaged ice is recognized as food by the Food and Drug Administration, and we follow all the FDA rules. We adhere to the 300-page instructions of the International Packaged Ice Association, including date-coding our products. And we’re registered with the Foodservice Equipment Distributors Association and the National Sanitization Foundation.

Any red flags in packaged ice for consumers to be aware of?

When buying ice, look for an IPI label and for the ice to be in a tamper-proof enclosed bag — with no drawstrings, twist-ties or bread clips. Safe ice should be taste- and odor-free.

As a leader in your family’s century-plus business, what are your specific pressures?

The pressure you have is the responsibility to succeed for all your people, and that responsibility — to pick the right paths to continue the legacy and be successful — rests squarely on my brother and me. But if our two children and nephew didn’t step into the business and help with keeping the plant up-to-date by being constantly on the forefront of technology, we couldn’t do it ourselves.