A £9 warning has been issued to people queuing at Mr Whippy ice cream vans this summer. A TikTok video has gone viral showing the price of two ice creams - 99s - has hit a staggering £9 amid the ongoing Cost of Living crisis.
Burnley twins Marnie and Mylah have gone viral after their video showed them reach the front of the queue and be charged £9. “Everything is going up,” said John Taylor, who runs the C&M Ices van. “It’s not just our industry. Every industry is in the same boat. The problem is everybody perceives us as a cheap product.”
“Everyone seems to think ice-cream should be 50p or a £1,” continued Taylor, speaking to the Guardian newspaper. “They’re quite happy to pay four quid for a lukewarm Starbucks coffee but won’t pay a couple of quid for a high-quality ice-cream.”
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“We don’t have the power of the supermarkets to buy 1,000 pallets of Magnums and sell them on at next to nothing just to get people through the doors,” he warned. Joseph McNeil, the ICA president, said the price of a Mr Whippy varied depending upon where you live.
He insists the average cost remains around £3.50 for a flake and sauce. “We, as an industry, probably come under fire more over price. This is the second or third video I’ve seen this year about ice-cream being expensive," he also said.
The warning comes ahead of the spring and summer season. McNeil went on, saying this weekend: “No one seems to associate the cost of living crisis with the ice-cream man or woman. We are going through it the same as any other business.
"Our rents are forever increasing, we have VAT and the national living wage to pay, and that’s before we get started on ingredients to actually make the ice-cream.”
