Ice cream van

An ice cream van (Commonwealth English) or ice cream truck (North American English) is a commercial vehicle that ice cream is sold from, usually during the spring and summer. Ice cream vans are often seen parked at public events, or near parks, beaches, or other areas where people congregate. Ice cream vans often travel near where children play – outside schools, in residential areas, or in other locations. They usually stop briefly before moving on to the next street. Ice cream vans often feature brightly coloured decorations, and along the sides, a large sliding window acts as a serving hatch, with the display of available products and their prices. Ice cream vans typically sell soft serve from a machine, served in a cone, and often with a chocolate flake (in Britain), a sugary syrup, or toppings such as sprinkles. Soft serve ice cream trucks are also found in North America, where ice cream trucks that only sell pre-packaged novelty products such as ice cream bars, ice cream sandwiches, and popsicles are more common. Most ice cream vans/trucks are independently owned and operated. However, there are ice cream truck/van franchises such as Mister Softee.
A distinctive feature of ice cream vans is the amplified music they play to attract customers. The music is typically an instrumental children's, classical, folk, or traditional pop song that is played repeatedly and sounds like a music box or electronic music. Early ice cream vans utilize electro-mechanical music boxes, with electronic systems becoming more common in the late 20th century. In the US and Canada, traditional ice cream truck songs include "The Band Played On", "Camptown Races", "Cradle Song", "The Entertainer", "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man", "It's a Small World", "La Cucaracha", "Little Brown Jug", "The Mister Softee Jingle", "Music Box Dancer", "Picnic" (a Japanese children's song usually played with a voice saying, "hello" at the beginning of the song), "Pop Goes the Weasel", "Red Wing", "Sailing, Sailing", "Turkey in the Straw", and "Yankee Doodle". In the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, ice cream vans traditionally play "Greensleeves".
Early ice cream vans carried simple ice cream, during a time when most families did not own a freezer. As freezers became more commonplace, ice cream vans moved towards selling novelty ice cream items, such as bars and ice pops.
There are mainly two types of ice cream vans in the United Kingdom:
They are usually converted from factory standard vans with the rear cut away and replaced with a fibre glass body (to reduce the weight).
Because of the British climate, not only is running an ice cream van profitably very difficult outside summer, but it is also an unpredictable business. A summer heatwave can provoke a massive upturn in fortunes for a few days, but after the weather has cooled sales drop off dramatically. The need to take advantage of rare and short-lived opportunities can result in the fierce rivalry between ice cream vans in coterminous areas, with the main disputes being over who is entitled to sell ice cream in a particular 'patch'. This has also led to some ice cream van vendors diversifying and selling other products such as crisps, chips, burgers or hot dogs from their vehicles at other times of the year.
In a number of local authority areas, particularly in London Boroughs with existing street markets, street trading regulations prohibit ice cream vans from remaining in one static location. The legislation also contains powers to ban ice-cream vans from specific streets. Proposals in the current London Local Authorities Bill would allow only 15 minutes trading per vehicle per street each day. There is also a nationwide code of practice for the use of chimes, which limits the volume to 80 dB and the duration to twelve seconds, but these rules are rarely observed and rarely enforced. Chimes must not be played more often than every three minutes, near hospitals, schools and churches when they are in use.
In Scotland, ice cream vans have been used to sell smuggled cigarettes and, in the 1980s Glasgow ice cream wars, as front organizations to sell illicit drugs.
Whitby Morrison, based in Crewe, Cheshire, was founded by Bryan Whitby who filed a UK patent in 1965 for mobile ice cream producing equipment through which soft serve units were powered off the van's drive mechanism. Today, the company is the UK's biggest ice cream van manufacturer, producing around 100 vans a year; its products have been exported to over 60 countries. The company has also been developing a fully electric on-board battery system to power the soft-scoop machines it fits; the first all-electric van was expected to be delivered in the summer of 2019.
In the United States, ice cream trucks are mostly built from multi-stop trucks, such as the Chevrolet Step-Van.
Apart from ice cream, ice cream trucks may also sell snow cones, Italian ice or water ice, snacks, soft drinks, and candy. Many trucks carry a sign, in the shape of a stop sign, that warns other drivers of children crossing the street to buy food or ice cream. They also play music to attract consumers to their trucks. With the advent of social media networking, many ice cream truck operators are redefining the traditional business model. Not satisfied with the traditional approach of cruising for customers, some operators such as gourmet ice cream sandwich maker Coolhaus are developing followings on social media sites and "announcing" the location of their trucks.
Professionally built ice cream trucks that sell prepackaged foods are called "novelty trucks". They use commercial cold plate freezers that plug in overnight and when unplugged maintain their temperature for at least 12 hours. Historically, the chimes are mechanical, such as using an amplified music box or a tape. In the recent times, the chimes commonly use digital sound chips that have no moving parts. Such systems may be able to play multiple tunes and have adjustable volume.
Norway has two leading ice-cream van companies; Isbilen (lit. ice-car) by Fråst, and Diplom-isbilen by Diplom-Is. Diplom-Isbilen sell ice cream made by Diplom-Is, and isbilen sell ice cream made by Isbjørn-Is, they also sell fish. The ice cream vans can be heard from afar, and attract customers to the street by playing the iconic tune "Norge rundt", symbolizing their presence all over the country.
Hemglass is the Swedish brand of the ice cream manufacturer Hjem-IS Europa A/S and was launched in Sweden in 1968. The company distributes its products in ice cream trucks in Sweden Hemglass and Denmark (Hjem-IS).