The Mr Whippys of Britain have not had the best start to the year. Ice-cream vans have been facing mounting criticism after campaign groups and parents complained they were delivering their vanilla cones and 99s with a topping of diesel fumes.
This weekend, however, they are savouring a double helping of good news: not only have temperatures been soaring, helping to boost custom up and down the country, but an all-new, non-polluting electric ice-cream van may be about to hit the roads.
This week, Whitby Morrison, which makes about 80% of all ice-cream vans in the UK, will begin testing a battery-powered ice-cream maker, and if all goes to plan the first all-electric ice-cream vans will be in use by the end of the summer.
“The ice-cream industry could really do with some good news and I hope this is it,” said Ed Whitby, the family firm’s operations director. “What with all the talk of bans, we’ve had a tough time recently.”
Concerns over pollution have seen ice-cream vans banned from 40 streets in the London borough of Camden, with council officials mounting patrols. Westminster has also been cracking down on idling vehicles, particularly diesel-engined ones, which emit black carbon and nitrogen dioxide.
Nigel Havers, the actor, said in 2017 he had taken to knocking on van windows to ask operators to turn off their engines. In April, London mayor Sadiq Khan introduced an ultra low emission zone , charging owners of the most polluting vehicles whenever they drive into the city centre.
“I don’t disagree with what the council has done: we’ve been aware of the environmental concerns for some time,” Whitby said. Of the new battery-powered equipment, he says: “We put pen to paper about 12 months ago and this is our third go at it. We’re ready to roll out for a proper test through the summer – no engine power required whatsoever, and able to produce Mr Whippy ice-cream for 12 hours at a time.”
Whitby Morrison will be converting the new all-electric Mercedes eSprinter van, adding multicoloured counters and the battery-powered soft ice dispensers that can theoretically deliver 600 cones an hour. If this weekend’s scorching temperatures don’t last, testing will take place in a huge oven, usually used for drying the company’s elaborate bodywork designs. “Some of our customers are in places like Tripoli and Cairo,” Whitby said. “Temperatures get up to 50C – we’ll be spending a lot of time in there.”
He expects ice-cream vendors to make huge savings, as they can spend about £8,000 a year on fuel. “Electricity is much cheaper.”
With about 5,000-6,000 ice-cream vans operating in the UK, according to Whitby’s estimates, it’s unlikely that they are making a big contribution to the total amount of roadside pollution, compared with the 12.4 million diesel cars and 4.5 million vans and lorries in the UK. But clean air campaigners, who point out that ice-cream vans are often parked next to playgrounds and schools, say the move could make a big difference, especially to children.
“Ice-cream vans come up a lot: I’m surprised by how often I hear it,” said Jemima Hartshorn of the campaign group Mums for Lungs. “People are concerned: ‘This ice-cream van is always in front of my children’s school, it’s disgusting, it smells’. It’s obviously unhealthy – the children get belched on by diesel fumes at funfairs and schools. I’d like to think the ice-cream vans are the start, and then we can go on to [deal with] traffic islands, which are much worse.”
John Bonar, the owner of Piccadilly Whip, which operates at landmarks such as the Tower of London, spent £200,000 on two new ice-cream vans to be ULEZ compliant. “It used to be that [pollution] would build up in the catalytic converter and then when you drive off it would blow everywhere, but now it’s just like water vapour coming out the back,” he said. “The council want to get their own house in order – they’re probably got vans that a far more polluting than we are.”
Bonar will be travelling up to Whitby Morrison in Crewe next week to take part in the one of the first tests. “I’m excited to see how it works, how long it lasts. We’re at Thruxton races next week and these shows cost a fortune in rent.”
With upwards of 1,000 ice-creams to sell on a busy day, the batteries need to last. The Whitby Morrison prototype will take up about a square metre of space in a van, and can be retrofitted to existing vehicles.
The itinerant vans, playing Greensleeves or Waltzing Matilda through their speakers as they prowl the suburbs for trade, are only a tiny part of the business now, Bonar said. “People have got freezers indoors. Supermarkets sell ice-cream.” And the business is changing in other ways, too. “Everybody used to be illegal street traders. In the old days it used to be ice-cream barrows and there used to be trouble with people arguing over pitches. Now we’ve got ISO 9001 [quality control systems], we’ve got £10m public liability insurance. Everybody’s evolved and gone legitimate.
“Now we have pitches, and we do big shows and corporate work. You need to diversify the business and change with the times, otherwise you become a dinosaur and go extinct.”
