21 April 2023 , 09:52
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Ice cream van drivers are facing ruin this summer as soaring costs force them to bump up the price of a Mr Whippy.
After fighting to survive during the coronavirus lockdowns, the country's remaining soft scoop servers are battling to survive as rising fuel and ingredient costs squeeze their margins.
The cost to produce a Mr Whippy has shot up 70% in a year, leaving vendors to decide whether to let the now mythical 99p price point to recede further in the rear view mirror.
Katy Alston, a 20 year ice cream van veteran and president of the Ice Cream Alliance, told the Mirror that this summer was crucial for the trade's future after a brutal decade.
In the past 10 years the number of ice cream van operators in the country has halved, she revealed.
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"Our ingredient cost has gone up 70%, but how can you put the price of your ice creams up 70%?" Katy said. "The price of fats and oils has been massively impacted by the war in Ukraine. A massive impact. The price of fuel is up. It it really is just the fittest surviving now."
Katy runs her ice cream business with her daughter Georgia (Goble Photography)To deal with the cost of living squeeze, Katy said many drivers had cut their number of days on the beat drastically.
The ice cream veteran has reduced hers from seven days a week to two, and sold off half of her fleet.
"It's the smaller towns and villages [that are worst impacted], where there are less vans, because there is less footfall and trade," she said. "I won't see nearly the numbers as colleagues in London will for example."
Katy, who runs Bognor Regis' single remaining ice cream van with her daughter Georgia, said the area was served by four Mr and Mrs Whippys just five years ago.
"Most of us have put our prices up 10%. A 99 was £2.50, now it is £2.70," she continued. "My profit margin on that will be much less than last year. Potentially people's careers will be ended. It is the same as any other businesses.
"I saw recently an ice cream company that had been trading for 100 years, just gone out of business. We got through the pandemic, we survived, but who would have thought we'd have these price increases?"
Katy said the summer ahead was a crucial one for many in the industry (Goble Photography)Katy said that the summer of 2020 was a particularly strong one for the industry as cooped up Brits desperate for stimulation at the end of the first lockdown flocked to the vans.
However, the sales boom came after a particularly hard winter and spring when "a lot of us didn't go out for months" for fear of encouraging people to break social distancing measures, Katy explained.
When the lockdown rules did lift scoopers witnessed "ice cream pandemonium" through their sliding window as children sprinted to the front of the queue and elderly people "threw down their zimmerframes" to answer the chimes' call.
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"I think it was one of the best early summers I've ever known, the target market was all in one place," Katy said.
Many of the drivers more interested in turning a good profit than ensuring people didn't socially mix unnecessarily and "do the right thing" would leave the profession before the final lockdown was out, Katy said.
The ice cream pro explained that the days of the fabled turf wars are long over, partly due to a fall in van numbers and an increased professionalism in the industry.
Ingredient prices have soared over the past year (Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)As the pressures on those who remain continue to increase, Katy made a call to the British public to support their local ice cream person.
"Often it is young people's first card and cash interaction," she said. "It is a treat, not for every day. But it is about supporting all our working industries if we want them to survive.
"If we just lived in a world of supermarkets, what would that look like? Is that what we want? It is a quintessential part of the British summer time, the sound of the ice cream van. Once it's gone, it's gone."