This month, Kenneth Daniels, owner of K.C. Daniels, is celebrating 50 years of entrepreneurial spirit. Since 1956, he has owned and operated his small business, making a great contribution to the Island, particularly through his water and ice delivery services and seafood distributorship.

Before delivering water, Mr. Daniels started a house painting business in 1956.

“When we got engaged, he was doing painting,” his wife Louise says. “We were married about five years when he went into the water trucking business.” That was in 1962 and the move proved to be advantageous.

“I needed to get into a one-man business,” Mr. Daniels says.

The next step was to purchase a water truck. In order to finance the vehicle, he sold some property and, against all odds, he started trucking water across the Island.

“It took me a while to get started. There were three giants out there in the water trucking business — they gave me six months, tops.”

On top of the opposition, Mother Nature also seemed to be against him.

“When I went into the water business, I never saw so much rain,” Mr. Daniels reminisces. “It took stamina and perseverance and faith. I had business cards and a few of the ‘big boys’ would give me the little jobs they didn’t want.”

The hustling eventually paid off, but, he admits it was somewhat challenging for the family.

“I thought the move into water trucking was a good thing because at that time, the water business was improving and there weren’t so many water trucks on the road,” says Mrs. Daniels.

By 1966, the couple started their own tank and wells, which are checked regularly by the health department. While her husband was out delivering water, Mrs. Daniels had the responsibility of monitoring their wells and tank and keeping records of how many times drivers filled their trucks.

“At that time, I had the three small girls. I had to check the trucks, along with doing the housework,” she explains. “It was years like that.”

She elaborates that her main challenge was to keep a record of which truckers came to get water, how many times they came and how much water they took, a task that was only eased with the eventual installation of meters.

It would be another 20 years before there was a major change, with the addition of the seafood business, which was a natural progression for Mr. Daniels, an Aquarius, who chuckles: “I always liked the seafood business and I enjoy sport fishing.

“In 1986, I started the seafood business, and shortly after, about a year or so later, I started the ice business.”

His seafood offerings include spiny lobster tails, in season, from Honduras and the Bahamas, crab legs, fish, mussels and shrimp, as well as lobster bisque and New England clam chowder shipped in from distributors in Boston and Miami from suppliers around the world. The business’s primary customers are home owners, although Mr. Daniels does sell to restaurants when they call.

Mr. Daniels recommends that you call ahead to make sure that they have what you are looking for in stock.

However, one of the most physically intensive parts of the business is making ice. Chip ice, which is available for sale in bags at gas stations and other locations around the Island, is relatively simple to make because of the two large ice making machines Mr. Daniels keeps. One of them is brand new, a quality Vogt machine valued at $30,000, which he purchased only a few months ago.

He says the most challenging task is making the 12.5-pound, 25-pound and 250-pound blocks of ice. The work is very labour intensive, as it requires filling up special trays and putting them in a special refrigeration unit to freeze. Then, when frozen, the trays are withdrawn from the machine and the ice is removed from the trays, bagged and stored in one of the freezers.

Rhonda, Mr. Daniels’ daughter, manages much of the business and is also very involved in the manual labour aspects of the job. Some Saturdays, she will work from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. making ice.

“I actually enjoy the manual labour,” she says. “I get a better rest!”

The 250-pound blocks of ice require four to five days advanced notice and are most popular with chefs for ice carvings.

Expansion in the ice business is also planned in the very near future. Mr. Daniels has ordered a new ice machine, which should arrive in the next few months. It is bigger than the current machine he has, it will allow him to make blocks between 250 and 300 pounds in size, or up to 48 12.5-pound blocks every 12 hours.