A beet juice and salt combination so far is proving the right recipe in Hobart's effort to clean icy roads at a cheaper cost this winter, but it didn't taste quite right when used in Valparaiso.

"It reduces the salt used and it adheres to the road better," Hobart Public Works Director Wayne Snider said.

The beet juice, which is derived from sugar beets, blends with the white road salt to give it a brownish color.

This is the first season the Hobart Public Works Department has used the product and it's only being used in certain areas.

"We're happy with what we're seeing so far, but until we've had a major snowstorm, it's a little too early to tell," Snider said.

His department has only treated its roads with about 70 percent of the recommended salt.

"Now in January, when we get our new salt supply, it will be 100 percent so we'll be able to see the full effect," he said.

Valparaiso added beet juice to its road salt in the past, but turned away from it because its high oxygen demand raised concerns about its entering the sewer system and treatment plant, Public Works Director Bill Oeding said. It also doesn't store long before losing effectiveness, he said.

This year, the city is using ClearLane, a de-icer of salt mixed with magnesium chloride, Oeding said.

The city of East Chicago also is in the early stages of a pilot program using beet juice.

East Chicago Street Department Director Ronald Edmonds said the product can be applied before a storm to make roads less slippery.

If there's no rain, the product can be effective for up to six days.

"It appears to be working," Edmonds said.

Officials in Hobart and East Chicago listed the high cost of salt -- triple what it was a year ago -- as one of the main reasons for trying the beet juice additive.

"We have been experimenting and coming up with ways to be more efficient without cutting services. This is a new product that will enable us to cut salt costs up to half of what we normally spend on salt," Edmonds said.

Other communities, including Crown Point and Merrillville, already have mixed beet juice in with their road salt for several years.

Jay Olson, Crown Point's director of public works, said the city was the first in Northwest Indiana to use beet juice and has been using it for eight years.

"It's environmentally safe and is a really good product," Olson said.

Merrillville officials have been using beet juice for the past five years, Public Works Director Bruce Spires said.

This is the ninth season for the product, formerly known as GEOMELT and now known as Ice Bites, that is made by an Indianapolis-based company called Road Solutions, said North Regional Manager Rod Waltman.

He said the product has a number of advantages, including working in temperatures as low as minus 25 degrees.

And, because it's a natural product, it reduces the amount of chloride going into the environment and causing damage to bridges and vehicles.

"You can't get much greener than that," Waltman said.

Staff writers Kathleen Quilligan, Chas Reilly and Brian Williams contributed to this report.