Ramstad: Ice-melt entrepreneur says it's time to change the way we combat slick sidewalks

About 1.2 million Americans slip and fall on ice in the U.S. each year, filling emergency rooms and urgent care centers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics even tracks the impact on the nation's workforce.

For about a decade, Mitch Vestal of Winston-Salem, N.C., has been trying to change that.

He developed a product called PlaySafe Ice Blocker, a liquid that can be sprayed on driveways and sidewalks ahead of a freeze to prevent ice from forming. Vestal sells it as less harmful to pets, lawns and waterways than the rock salt that people typically throw on their walks on an icy morning.

"People hate everything about ice removal," Vestal said. "There's almost nobody that doesn't want to find a better way to deal with winter."

He began his career selling typewriter ribbons, then became a product manager at Gillette and Pepsi before becoming an ice-melt entrepreneur. He's called me and others at the Star Tribune before big snowstorms over the years, seeking out a mention if we're pulling together a storm preparation story.

This year, though, Minnesota is experiencing one of the mildest winters ever. Here we are in February and, after more than a week of highs in the 40s and 50s, the only snow on the ground in the Twin Cities is in the piles formed by plows.

"It's funny to see you on the other side of the penny this year," Vestal told me last week.

He didn't need to explain. The winter of 2022-23 was one of the worst for snowfall in Minnesota history with about 93 inches at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the official measuring point for the Twin Cities metro. At this point in winter a year ago, the airport had received more than 50 inches. This winter, it's only had 7.2 inches.

The airport has another way to measure. Its snow crews worked so frequently last year that they spent 57 nights in sleeping quarters at its maintenance shop. So far this winter, snow removal crews have stayed around-the-clock at MSP 13 times. Some nights that was to be ready for snow that didn't come, an airport spokesman said this week.

Vestal got the idea for PlaySafe by learning how airports treat runways before freezing temperatures with solutions of potassium acetate and calcium magnesium acetate. He went to one of the leading suppliers of those products, an Iowa firm called Cryotech Deicing Technology, and developed a formulation for a consumer product. He manufactures it in a Chicago suburb.

"It's not that there's just no ice under the snow. When you go to shovel, it's not fusing to the ground," Vestal said.

Since 2017, the product has been on sale in chains like Menards and Lowe's, with gallons priced around $23 tucked in between 8 or 12-pound jugs of ice melt costing less than $10. And since PlaySafe is a liquid, first-time users often have to buy a gallon-sized sprayer, which costs around $10, too.

That means Vestal is trying to persuade customers to change their approach, to be proactive about fighting ice rather than reactive about melting it, and face a cost that appears greater at first.

The pricing comparison isn't apples-to-apples, though. The PlaySafe liquid will spread over and ice-proof far more ground than the same volume of salt pellets can effectively melt ice, Vestal points out. Changing behavior is trickier since most of us react to events and situations, as health care professionals, insurers and specialists in human behavior know well. We go to the doctor after getting sick, take the car in after the engine sounds funny and throw salt on the ice after a storm.

Vestal said he faced the most skepticism from buyers at the big retail chains. "Nothing happens without smart people in the trade seeing what you're trying to do," he said. "If you make it through their gauntlet of questions or concerns, you're in pretty good shape."

These days, he said, his favorite thing is seeing repeat orders come in via Amazon and Chewy.com and other online orders that he sees directly. "There's just nothing like it when you see people get it," Vestal said.

He landed PlaySafe in 75 stores across the country when he first started distribution seven years ago. Today it's in around 600. He's aiming for 2,000. He declined to talk about precise sales figures.

There's one aspect to the product that users also have to learn: it has to be applied at the right time. Vestal suggests doing it when consumers see road crews applying solutions on highways ahead of a storm.

"We market it in places where snow is real and it starts in a predictable way," Vestal said.

Until this winter, Minnesota fit those qualifications. Then again, winter isn't over.