Walking through Saigon nowadays, you will notice that ice is so omnipresent, it’s part of the scenery. From trà đá, cà phê sữa đá to sinh tố, every drink is consumed with ice in order to combat the intense heat. Before the French brought ice factories to Vietnam, in hot, tropical cities like Saigon, you wouldn’t expect to find ice. Controlling the cold chain is now an important part of our logistics, be it for healthcare or food storage, opening the door for any cuisine to expand with new ingredients. A few centuries ago, however, it was once a thriving business catering to French colonists.
Making ice in a tropical climate
Throughout history, Vietnamese people learned to manage food safety and storage by using the tropical weather as an advantage. Folks focused on fermentation to extend the shelf life of produce; to quench thirst, people either drank hot tea or used clay jars to cool down water by a few degrees.
When French colonists started living in Vietnam, they maintained their desire to live as comfortably as possible, according to their standards, even at the expense of the local people. One of the luxuries they couldn’t bring from home, but dreamt about, was cold beer. While ice trades, sourced from the frozen lakes of North America, flourished in large Asian ports in India, Singapore and Hong Kong, there is no evidence of a Vietnamese harbor importing ice.
While it is highly likely that ice was imported from these regional ports, the lack of documentation indicates that it must have been in small quantities and for special occasions. The absence of consistent ice vendors revealed a market void, which paved the way for a lucrative industry. It was two French brothers, Victor and Gabriel Larue, who noticed the opportunity first. Victor started selling ice as soon as he arrived in Saigon in 1879; he was later joined by his brother, but their method wasn't documented until 1886, when the business scaled up. That year, they imported 140,000 kilograms of machinery to make ice, and built a secondary facility in Hải Phòng.
Saigon - Larue ice factory interior. Image via Les entreprises coloniales françaises.
The Larue brothers imported many kinds of machines to their factories throughout the years; whether they were compression or absorption refrigeration machines, the main goal was the same: the process of making ice is a continuous cycle where heat is constantly moved from one place to another. It starts with the compressor, which takes a low-pressure gas and squeezes it into a high-pressure hot vapor. The brothers used ammonia, having imported 15,000 kilograms of it in 1879. This vapor then enters the condenser, where it releases its heat into the surrounding air and transforms into a high-pressure liquid. This liquid then passes through a throttle valve, where the sudden drop in pressure causes its temperature to plummet instantly. Finally, this cold fluid enters evaporator coils, which are submerged in or surrounded by water. Through the metal walls of these pipes, the refrigerant absorbs the heat from the water until the water solidifies into ice.
Business grew quickly: the target clientele was not only restaurants or bars, but also private individuals who were seeking blocks of ice for their homes. The sales process used prepaid vouchers that had to be bought beforehand, requiring a minimum purchase of one kilogram.
The Larue brothers were not the only ice makers in Vietnam. For example, there was an ice factory in Hanoi that was opened in 1886 by an entrepreneur named Berthoin. However, whether due to poor business management or bad luck, he didn’t succeed in lasting long. The price when he opened his business was 10 cents a kilogram (roughly equivalent to EUR2.5 today), which was criticized as too high. He had to cut the price to 6 cents a kilogram two years later. That same year, he lost a lawsuit that he initiated against a competitor whom he accused of selling tickets that were allegedly too similar to his, because they shared the same color palette. The next summer, Hanoi underwent an ice shortage, as Berthoin destroyed his old factory to build a new one. With quantity far outpaced by demand, some people queued for more than four hours to get some ice for their families.
The Larue brothers didn’t miss the opportunity and bought this factory in 1893, expanding their business to Hanoi, near the one they created in Hải Phòng.
Larue ice factory, Hải Phòng - Ice house. Image via Les entreprises coloniales françaises.
But maintaining an ice factory isn’t easy. One of the main issues was the quality of the water, which can affect the taste of the ice and, more critically, can create some serious health issues. Indeed, with water drawn from the river where trash was thrown, people were afraid that diseases could spread faster — most notably cholera, which caused many deaths in Asia at the time. In 1895, in Hải Phòng and Hanoi, many customers complained about the ice quality, as red stains could be seen through the blocks, and it tasted rotten. Wells were dug the next year in Hanoi to source better-quality water.
Larue’s success attracted a lot of attention, in particular amongst the brewing sector. The ice and beer businesses have always been intricately linked by the necessity of refrigeration. Specifically, the fermentation process must occur at a constant temperature, meaning that the ability to keep liquids cold is key for good beer. The Larue brothers had already entered the brewing industry as early as 1909, making their own “Larue” beer, which is still sold today.
Larue beer ad in the newspaper L’Information d’Indochine, April 26, 1934. Image via Les entreprises coloniales françaises.
Another colonial family, the Denis brothers, who were initially involved in the import/export of goods to Indochina, took the opportunity to merge the two already-linked industries into one and created the Brasserie et Glacière de l’Indochine in 1927. The Denis brothers bought the Larue business, and other breweries like Brasserie Hommel, and instantly became a formidable operation. This company, currently named Brasseries et Glacières Internationales, grew into an international firm with subsidiaries in many French colonies and later, other countries. Today, they are particularly dominant in the African beer market, but remain influential globally.
Outside of Hommel brewery in Hanoi, Tonkin. Image via Les entreprises coloniales françaises.
The business of colonists at the expense of locals
Ice-making was always intended to cater to French colonists' desire to drink cold beer, a colonial context wherein their wishes were satisfied at the expense of Vietnamese people. For example, the French relied on exploitative labor and the prioritization of private luxury over public sanitation.
Larue ice factory, Hanoi. Image via Les entreprises coloniales françaises.
Of course, workers in the ice and brewing factories were indigenous people, and the dynamic between them and the colonists was characterised by systemic inequalities. Vietnamese people were seen as a means of labor for white settlers, as illustrated in this article extract from L’Avenir du Tonkin (May 18, 1895) about a French doctor addressing the poor quality of ice and coming up with a solution using “con-gai” (a French word derived from the Vietnamese term con gái, refer to local Vietnamese women):
In the process, the Brasserie et Glacière de l’Indochine generated a lot of money: in 1930 it declared a net profit of 329,714 piastre, the equivalent value of around EUR2.3 million in 2025. French settlers got rich by exploiting a cheap local workforce whom they viewed as mere objects, for a luxury — chilled beer — that was almost exclusively consumed by settlers, as noted in this article extract:
Household refrigeration developed when foreign companies entered the market after Đổi Mới, which enabled families to store food more safely and for longer. Meanwhile, most of the ice consumed in Vietnam is still made in industrial ice factories. They power restaurants and cafes, which account for most of the ice sold. Ice has historically been linked to the creation of beer in Vietnam, consumed by French colonists, but Vietnam has formed its own ice-beer relationship too: most Vietnamese people today like to drink beer with ice, a local custom that diverged from western conventions. Throughout their history, ice factories have never ceased to expand, paving the way for many creative cold drinks, like cà phê sữa đá with condensed milk — a humble Vietnamese cold beverage that is now conquering the world.
