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Ice cream van drivers struggle to survive amid rising costs

Ice cream van drivers across the UK are facing a tough summer as soaring costs are forcing them to increase the price of a Mr Whippy. After challenging years due to the pandemic, the country’s remaining soft scoop vendors are also battling to stay afloat due to rising fuel and ingredient costs squeezing their margins.

The cost to produce a Mr Whippy has shot up 70% in just a year, leaving vendors with a difficult decision of whether to increase prices and let the iconic 99p price point fade into the past. Katy Alston, a 20-year ice cream van veteran and president of the Ice Cream Alliance, said 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.

“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 really is just the fittest surviving now.”

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 fewer 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 the last ice cream van in her area 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 business. 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?”

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The industry experienced a sales boom in the summer of 2020 as cooped up Brits flocked to ice cream vans, but this came after a tough 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.

Many of the drivers who were more interested in turning a good profit than ensuring people didn’t socially mix unnecessarily left the profession before the final lockdown was lifted, Katy said. The days of turf wars among ice cream van drivers are long gone, partly due to a fall in van numbers and an increased professionalism in the industry.

As the pressures on those who remain continue to increase, Katy made a call to the British public to support their local ice cream vendors. “It is a quintessential part of the British summer time, the sound of the ice cream van. Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” she said. “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?”

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