What do ice cream vans do in the winter
Ellinor’s ice cream vans usually look to park up in the winter after all the firework events and School Christmas visits. Does the work finish? Well no. One of the first jobs is stripping the vans bare inside of stock ready to carry out the many maintenance jobs, did you know the ice cream machine has approx forty moving parts so some need work and some need replacing. One van each year is booked in for a complete body respray which keeps the fleet looking polished. The vans are deep cleaned and the staff are looking to a few weeks well earned rest. It isn’t long before its time to start again, the vans all get booked in for a full service and ice cream machinery servicing as well. Once again the vans are given a very deep clean and time to order new utensils and items required for the season ahead.
Now work really begins in early February where Ellinor’s visit trade shows. Taste everything and speak to all the manufacturers and suppliers. Everyone ice cream related are at the shows Walls, Nestle, Treats, Stella the list goes on. Ellinor’s find out products that are being delisted and new ones coming to the UK. Sometimes we have a good idea and sometimes there are complete surprises, who could guess Walls were going to stop the famous mint feast in 2017. Sometimes hard decisions have to be made for instance the iconic Fab lolly, it would be nice to keep this for sentimental reasons and historically the oldest continuous name lolly brand but it unfortunately is so small now the company can’t justify the retail price for their customers. After this it’s careful consideration of what our customers have said to us, what was popular last season and what was not. As one of the leading ice cream companies it’s also about what’s trending and what is around the next corner public tastes and fashions are ever evolving so keeping the menus fresh and new helps the company to lead the way. Once all things are considered its time to start designing and planning the new menu for the oncoming season, company spokesperson Bonita Ellinor said “its very exciting to introduce the new menu’s to our customers and see the reaction to new products and inventions of our own, one I really think will be a hit this year is the new white chocolate and cookies Magnum”.
The booking office are very busy already by February sending out quotes for Weddings, Corporate hire days and year on year returning customer’s that like to book early to guarantee an Ellinor’s ice cream van at their event.
Its all about cleaning again top to bottom then restocking the vans, if the weathers kind by the end of February its all out and full steam ahead for the season. Watch out for an Ellinor’s ice cream van on a street or event and see what’s new for this year there are lots of yummy surprises in store for you.
