Winter wouldn't be winter without Snow - which is why one firm is busy making it.

Didcot-based Air Products won the contract to produce five tonnes of 'PolarSnow' daily to be transported to Olympia, London, to make snowmen and snowballs at the Daily Mail Ski and Snowboard Show.

Mums, dads and kids are even throwing it at a variation of a coconut shy - a ' snow shy' - to knock down prizes.

It is the first time that there has been real snow at the event, thanks to a new process that can produce real powder snow - not the shaved ice or ice pellets typical of artificial snow.

Pramod Gujral, European marketing manager at Air Products which delivered the first consignment today, said the unique snow-making system system uses liquid nitrogen to rapidly freeze a mixture of water and compressed air.

Mr Gujral said: "It is environmentally-friendly and identical to the natural snow that falls from the sky. "Just like natural snow, PolarSnow can be picked up, it is soft and can be compressed to make a snowball."

When it eventually melts - it is colder than natural snow - simply water and air remain.

Normally it would be made on site for activties like indoor ski slopes. But organisers of the Olympia show did not have facilities manufacture the artificial snow at the exhibition centre. And so it is being transported 60 miles from Air Products at Didcot by truck in insulated boxes normally used to store fish catches on trawlers in the North Sea.

What it is costing the Daily Mail is a commercial secret, although Mr Gujral said: "Polar snow can be produced at a cost of between £200 and £1,500 a tonne, depending on the size of the order."

It means that it is a bit too expensive to order up for your children's family party at Christmas, although as the popularity of PolarSnow grows Mr Gujral said the price should come down and it could eventually be within reach of anyone.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.