The incredible resilience of ice cream vans

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In early September 2024, a procession of ice cream vans lined the streets in Kent, UK, to pay tribute to an iconic local dairy boss who’d served the area for 70 years. The pictures highlighted the relationship between ice cream vans and their communities. 

Local children are familiar with the tinkling tunes ice cream vans play over tannoy speakers, to announce their arrival on a street or in a park – and for older generations, the sound triggers a nostalgia for summers gone by. 

(We won’t talk about that one child everyone knows, with a parent that told them ice cream vans only play music when they’ve run out of ice cream.) 

But those pictures of the procession also reminded us of their resilience. Because there’s no getting around the fact that ice cream vans look pretty dated in 2024; it appears they haven’t changed much since the 1950s. And yet they’re still out there, serving sweet treats on the UK’s streets. 

So what’s behind the resilience of ice cream vans – and from a business perspective, do they have a future? 

From chilly beginnings to their golden years in the 1960s

A Swiss entrepreneur called Carlo Gatti brought ice cream to the streets of London in the 19th century. He started selling it from a stall at the Hungerford Market, in Charing Cross, right in the heart of the city. His signature dish was ‘penny licks’ – at the cost of a penny, people who’d never been able to afford to taste ice cream before could finally give it a go. 

By 1850, there were around 20 ice cream sellers on the streets. Henry Mayhew, a journalist in Victorian England, wrote of one ice cream vendor saying: 

“Lord, I’ve seen people splutter when they taste it for the first time, as I much did myself. They get among teeth and they make you feel as if your tooth ached all over.” 

It was in the 1940s that traditional ice cream up to that point was replaced with a light, aerated, whipped version – sweet and cost-effective, it was pumped from a machine and easy to serve from street stalls and on-the-go vendors. 

Which brings us to ice cream vans. Actually, the first ice cream van is believed to have operated not in the UK, but in the USA – Mister Softeet was launched in 1956 in West Philadelphia, by two Irish brothers named James and William Conway. 

Three years later, Mister Softee arrived in the UK. And the rest is history: within two years the company was operating vans in 33 locations across England and Wales. Simultaneously, another ice cream company – Walls – was busy developing its own soft-serve ice cream product; and that became a national success known as Mr. Whippy. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, estimates suggest there were about 20,000 ice cream vans operating in the UK. Today, the country is down to about 5,000 vans. According to job search specialist Glassdoor, operating an ice cream van could earn around £26,000 a year. The profit margins are good – but sales are dwindling. 

There’s a new potential future for mobile ice cream vendors 

Although they’re not doing so well on the streets these days, ice cream vans are becoming increasingly popular as a retro food service option at events – from local community celebrations to weddings, and corporate events. 

This is driving a comeback for ice cream vans, and serving events has some business advantages too. Perhaps most importantly, vendors can plan ahead more easily, booking events months or even years in advance, which allows them to forecast their financial futures – rather than relying on daily fluctuations in sales volumes depending on consumer preferences and the weather.

The COVID-19 pandemic put a significant spanner in the works for this pivot into pre-booked events, though. And it highlighted the resilience of mobile ice cream vendors, who accepted that they wouldn’t be booked for any events for quite a while – and took to the streets again to make sales. 

That’s exactly why they’re still around. The very nature of them is agile: they can move to wherever the customers are, and over the years, that has allowed them to adapt to cultural and economic changes that affect their ability to sell. 

What’s the lesson? 

Small businesses can be highly agile. But small businesses that can physically move whenever they need to? There’s still serious scope for success there, with the right business mind behind the wheel. 

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