On a balmy Thursday morning, the owner of Rainbow Ice Cream in Coquitlam, BC, looks over a computer spreadsheet and talks to drivers about their routes. Some flavors are lacking, and Falou is focused on efficiency for his fleet of 10 trucks. The problem isn’t just high gas prices, Falu said. “Maintenance went up. Truck parts went up. Mechanical went up,” he said in an interview. “Ice cream went up over 60 percent. We had to raise the price by a dollar. We couldn’t do more, because of the consumers. We just want them to be able to afford ice cream.” Steve Christensen, executive director of the North American Ice Cream Association, said vendors face a number of challenges. “Gas prices are up,” Christensen said, speaking from Missouri. “So a lot of everything — cones, cups, different things — anything that needs to be trucked in has also gone up in price.”
Many challenges
Ice cream prices typically rise 3 to 5 percent annually, Christensen said. However, he said this year, prices are up 10 to 15 percent, though that may not apply to the entire menu. Falu said he tried to keep prices under control. “You don’t make a profit in this business with just one piece,” he said. “You also make a profit from volumes, I want [people] can afford to buy ice cream from the ice cream truck. I don’t want to give this bad image that the ice cream truck is so expensive, you know.” Falu hopes to “make a little” without having to dip into his savings like he did during the last two years of the pandemic. It’s been a tough year, said Falou, who closes Rainbow Ice Cream from late September to April each year. “The bad weather hit us in the spring. It was the wettest weather in June. This affects our sales to a great extent. And certainly the profit is much less than in previous years.” Like everything else, the price of ice cream has risen at a much faster rate than normal this year. (Nina Westervelt/Bloomberg) It’s not just local weather. Global climate events are also affecting the ice cream business, Christensen said. For example, Madagascar supplies about 70 percent of the world’s vanilla, and when there is a storm there or a short flowering period, it affects the world market. “Which again, you know, affects the ice cream,” he said.
The Curse of “Ghost Kitchens”
Christensen said old-school ice cream vendors also have to deal with new challenges, such as delivery apps and competitors in so-called “ghost kitchens” that don’t have a storefront but sell ice cream online. “The overheads [for a ghost kitchen] it is very cheap. They use social media to promote their ice cream, they sell it online and people come to pick it up from the kitchen or from a location.” Falu started driving an ice cream truck in the 1990s, which he called the “golden days” of the business. He said he made a lot more money back then. To overcome the hurdles of apps, weather, gas prices and inflation, Falou said he hopes there will be a return to corporate events and other scheduled bookings, which were cut during the pandemic but are now returning. “We suffered,” he said, shaking his head. “We rely a lot on corporate events, birthday parties, parades and weddings and all that. So this year, they’re starting to come back. Some of them, not all of them. So hopefully next year we’ll have them all back.” But the days when an ice cream truck could drum up business by driving around and playing a happy tune are over, Christensen said.
Trucks “must dive” now
“Ice cream truck owners need to look for catering opportunities, food truck events, go to offices and hospitals and say, ‘Hey, we can put on a corporate event for you,’” he said. “They have to hustle a little bit more now than they probably ever have before.” Christensen recalled his first contact with the ice cream business, hearing the traditional jingle of the truck as a child in his native Australia. “And little Steve Christensen goes and takes some money out of mom’s drawer and goes out and buys the Flake cone,” he said with a laugh. “I’d like to think that people still cherish those experiences. So the process of supporting the local ice cream truck, I think is very important, because it keeps those memories alive for kids these days.” Have questions about this story? We answer as many as we can in the comments.
