Ice cream vans could become a thing of the past on UK roads thanks to the spiraling cost of fuel and ingredients, and the ongoing impact of lockdown. The cost to produce a Mr Whippy has gone up 70% in a year.
Katy Alston, a 20-year ice cream van veteran and president of the Ice Cream Alliance, told the Mirror the number of ice cream van operators has halved over the last 10 years.
Katy said: "Our ingredient cost has gone up 70%, but how can you put the price of your ice creams up 70%?" She added: "It really is just the fittest surviving now."
Katy said many drivers had cut the number of days they operate in order to cut costs. She has gone down from seven days a week to two, and has sold half her fleet.
Katy, who runs Bognor Regis' last remaining ice cream van, said the area was served by four Mr and Mrs Whippys five years ago.
She said: "Most of us have put our prices up 10%. A 99 was £2.50, now it is £2.70. 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 is calling on the 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."
