Whippy Ice Cream Van Hire for Events Shows & Functions
Call Miss Whippy on 07799 742 726
We Cater for Events, Shows, Weddings, Corporate Hospitality, School Events, Festivals Carnivals fairs and much more
5 Star Award for Food Hygiene
Level 1 & 2 Food Safety Certificates
Operating since 1988 in Ice Cream Catering
Excellent Corporate Bundle Offers
Competitive Rates & 100% Reliability
Professional & Friendly Service Assured
£5 Million Public & Product Liability Insurance
Excellent Range of Brand Name Products
Nut Allergy Aware – No loose Nut Products used
Ice Cream Van Hire for Your Event or Show Best Rates Service & Quality Products
Over the years Pamela’s Ice Cream Van Hire (Miss Whippy) has picked up extensive experience in the Outside Events Catering sector, also being involved with mobile catering (Outside Food Catering) Hot Food Burger trailers/Vans, Hog Roast catering trailer, Donuts and various other types of food, We can organize all the Catering on any large Events, Shows, Weddings, Functions, Festivals, Hospitality, in the UK.
Staff are Qualified to Level 1 & 2 Food safety & we Carry £5 million Public & Products liability insurance and are Registered With Darlington Borough Council Environmental Health.
Awarded 5 Stars For Food Hygiene and Safety.
We Cater for any Size Event or Show and travel anywhere in Great Britain, we can provide food and Ice Cream Vans for smaller functions anywhere in North East England. Ice Cream Van Hire for Your Event or Show We can organize all your Food & Refreshment requirements at your Venue whether it be on hospitality basis or paid for by customer at point of sale all with Competitive Rates of rent and a personal and professional Service.
Pamela’s Ice Cream Van Hire Ltd. provides a wide selection of the Best Brand Ice Cream & Ice Lollies from all of the leading UK Manufacturers including Walls, Nestle, Treats, Cadbury and Greco Brothers with the addition of a few Quality best selling lines from other carefully selected Companies to satisfy the taste buds of anyone attending your event. Nut allergy aware, we don’t stock any loose nut products due to nut allergies.
More about us from the Early Years Selling on an Ice Cream Van
I first started in the trade in 1988 in Spennymoor County Durham in a Bedford CF2 hard Ice Cream Van. In 1988 Spennymoor had 3 others working there already so I was Number 4 but back then it didn’t matter as the trade was better than it is today, we all managed to make a living from it, but since then 1 supermarket in the town went to 4 supermarkets so as a result 4 Ice Cream Vans has gone to 1 but nearly none, as trade is very poor on the streets now we only remain with the help of the Car Boot Sale that we attend but even Car boot Sales have a lot of Competition these Days, I have found that only a few of them have enough business to be worth while for us.
Our First Ice Cream Van (Hard Ice Cream Scoop Serve)
Our first Ice Cream Van was a 1983 Bedford CF2 Hard Van Built by Morrison’s, this was before they were bought out by Whitby’s and became Whitby Morrisons. My first Day on the round was a Sunday and I took £40, even though I knew my way round the town I didn’t have a clue where to start but with perseverance I worked out a round for myself after coming across other Ice Cream Vans many times, I needed to work out the best places to go and also go 2 or so hours before or after another Ice Cream Van this way you would get some trade and not completely take someone else’s trade away which would start the famous Ice Cream Wars, though some Vendors would start a war just because you were in the same town, as it was only one of the other Vendors was like (who I won’t name) but she would change her times to beat me everywhere but I found this method worked against you as regular customers wouldn’t know when to expect you, she also approached me and told me in some words that sounded more French than Italian, I won’t mention them here, “if I didn’t leave three men were going to do me in” then she was going to go to the Police which somewhat baffled me, well I wasn’t going to give up because of a few threats so I just told her to do whatever she thinks best and left it at that, I can understand how she felt seeing another Trader but I wasn’t going to give up my new job because someone else doesn’t like it, I wasn’t even trying to work her times I was making my own round but it did prove difficult when she kept changing her times so I just stuck to my times no matter what she did and it worked because I ended up with the regulars and she lost hers due to them not knowing when she was coming, her threats turned out to be idle anyway but threatening me in front of a witness wouldn’t have helped her anyway.
Our Second Ice Cream Van (Mr Whippy)
Our Second Van Was a Whitby Morrison 1988 Half Cowl Conversion with a Carpigiani Singola Ice Cream Machine fitted
Our Third Ice Cream Van (Mr Whippy)
Our third Ice Cream Van Was a 1998 Ford Transit Triple Head Soft Serve Full Cowl extended Castle Body built by Whitby Morrison’s this one we still have and has served many Years in Northallerton and Spennymoor, we were going to upgrade again a few years back but the cost just keeps going up (about 60 to £70,000 for a standard Ice Cream Van with a single machine) we just couldn’t afford it but this one is still great it has been so reliable in the last ten years we have had it, we keep it clean and maintained all the time. the machine is a Capigianni Super Tre BP (like the Van Uno But a double Barrel machine) which is the best you can get in a van very expensive but very well sought after so even second hand they are as rare as hens teeth, they are perfect in an Ice Cream Van with a serving window on both sides as you can serve from both on a show and the machine will keep up, you can only get a new one fitted in a van if you go to Whitby Engineering (Carpigiani Franchise) none of the other Ice Cream Van Coach Builders can get them new with the odd exception I suppose some might acquire one as a shop machine and chop it down to fit or leave it intact and run it from a Large generator fitted it the back of the Van which I know E Cocozza and Sons in Motherwell Scotland have fitted them this way on some very large Vans, I have always fancied trying one from these, their Ice Cream Vans are usually very large and good for the Scottish Rounds as they are stocked up like mobile shops the only downside is that you can’t park in streets as easy because of the number of cars on the road these days. Some years ago my partner took over the business as I was working for Cummins Engines in Darlington I have always been mechanically inclined so I took this Job because of poor sales in The winter it was a great job for a while working in service parts (distribution), most of the team were great but I got moved to the line and middle management there had no respect for shop floor workers and it soon became a drag so I begged for a voluntary redundancy when they were laying off.
Shows and Events & Hospitality
We have some diverse experience on many different shows including, Fetes, Fairs, Football tournament’s, truck Shows, Live Events, they can be good earners but also can be big losers, when you’ve had one good and one bad and work them out together you end up with an equivalent to two moderate ones or even a break even. Event organizers all want the same thing from you (understandable though it may be) they want high rent and often up front which is quite difficult to manage if you have quite a few shows booked up. Minimum inconvenience, reliability (means you turn up no matter what the weather is), no moaners (you don’t complain when it rains and you lose all your hard earned cash) we have had our fair share, a better way from our point of view is a commission basis but this requires trust from the organiser but we believe if you pay the right rent they will use you again providing the sun shines, it does get embarrassing when you hand over 20 for a big event but that’s the nature of the beast its all feast and famine in this trade, the other part you have to deal with is having to take a bit of stick from the customers when you pay high rent you have to charge high to cover though the majority of your customers will understand, some don’t though and will let you know in some quite impolite terms, also you will find some areas of the country are worse than others with the pricing issue yes I’ve heard you saying its a rip off and I can understand how you feel but spare a thought for us on the days it rained but still had to pay high rent, I have found that the North East don’t go along with it as well as somewhere like Scotland, you need to display your prices it is the law and it gives them the chance to walk away if they don’t want to pay to save you from being shouted at. Travelling is one of the things you have to be prepared to do, we are based in County Durham which is local to Tyneside, Teesside, Cleveland & North Yorkshire which are our main target areas but we do Travel anywhere for large Events as travelling costs are more viable, but with smaller Events we will suggest or point organisers towards a more local vendor to them, any distance up to 100 miles we consider local which can be driven to within 2 hours.
Counties and towns we have worked in include: North Yorkshire, Teesside, Tyneside, Newcastle, South Shields, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Durham, Darlington, Northallerton, Newton Aycliffe, Spennymoor, Crook, Bishop Auckland, Tow Law, Wolsingham, Richmond, Leyburn, Catterick, Fife, Edinburgh, Penrith, Cumbria, Derby, Donington, Whitby, Guisborough, Thirsk, Scarborough, Billingham, Hartlepool, Sunderland, Redcar, Peterlee, Ripon, Bedale, Washington, Yarm, Harrogate, York, Wetherby, Leeds, Driffield, Barnard Castle, Seaham, Gateshead, Appleby but to name a few.
Wholesaling Ice Cream
We once co-owned a Walls franchise with a friend, which was a good thing to have years ago but much has changed over the years, for a start the Monopolies and Mergers Commission investigated Walls Ice Cream about supplying freezers to shops and insisting that only Walls product should be sold from them, I can understand why they did this as I wouldn’t give someone a freezer to sell someone else’s product where would the money come from to pay for the freezer? but the commission in their infinite wisdom ruled that they can’t do this as it is regarded as a monopoly but why is this, the other manufacturers could always put their own freezer in, or the shopkeeper could buy their own then they can put whatever they want in, its all bureaucracy gone wrong to me, but this in turn ended franchises as we knew them, now Walls supply only to the Supermarkets and larger distributors they have to compete for the mobiler and shop business now it didn’t change all that much for the sole mobiler but it was a bit of a shake up for the franchises, I suppose everyone can get the same bite at the apple now and the shops have a better position to negotiate a discount for their Walls stock now, maybe less help with a new freezer though, I’m just glad to be away from the wholesale side now, not that it couldn’t pay for itself with a bit of hard leg work it did have potential but it did split me in two running the wholesale and retail side at the same time. Links for some North East UK wholesalers can be found on our links page here.
Fresh or Long Life Ice Cream Mix or Long Life Ice Cream Mix
Fresh Mix usually made locally for use in Machines in shops and on Vans this is a favourite in the Trade, you buy enough to last a few Days because like milk it will only last a week at best and must be kept below 5 degrees c, it usually tastes better in my experience though there are some very good quality long life mixes, I have thought about using a Jersey Dairy long life mix, I sampled it at an Ice Cream exhibition from the Ice Cream Makers Stall in 2008, I thought it tasted very good, but the drawback is transport this puts the cost up on everything, I don’t know of anyone near to me that sells it and I would have to order pallets of it to make it worth while this gives two problems storage and capital outlay, the other thing to consider is will it work in your machine as some mixes work better than others in a machine some are harder to freeze thus slowing things down and some won’t overrun very well thus coming out heavy and sloppy, I have found that most Dairy Ice Cream Mixes tend to freeze slower as well. You could be your own Ice Cream Maker but this is very expensive to set up and if you work from home you might run into problems with your local council.