Everyone loves a soft ice cream on a hot day, and it’s not summer if a Mr Whippy van doesn’t pull into your street.
When that happens, you know exactly what you’re ordering: a flake 99.
For those of you who don’t know, it’s a standard cone topped with a swirl of ice cream and garnished with a single Cadbury’s chocolate flake.
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It’s the OG of ice-creams and one that us Brits have enjoyed for decades.
Except, it’s not 99p anymore, or even a quid - it can cost as much as £2.50 for the little treat.
With the price having gone up that much, you might be wondering just how much does Mr Whippy make back from it?
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One Hertford lawyer has spilled the beans on that exact amount.
As a staple of the Great British summer, you’d expect Mr Whippy to make a pretty penner per flake 99 sold, but you won’t expect how much.
Mat Fresco, in a TikTok video under his username @matthewfresco, has claimed that the company makes £1.19 from the frozen treat.
The law expert took to the online platform to break down the costs of the ice cream and said: "How much does Mr Whippy make when you buy an ice cream, it’s £1.19. This vanilla flavoured soft serve ice cream with a chocolate flake served in a cone cost me £2.50."
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He then broke down the cost per ingredient: "The cone costs 4p, the half-sized Cadbury’s chocolate flake costs 10p. Mr Whippy is the trade name of the soft mix ice cream made by Wall's, it’s made from condensed milk, double cream and vanilla, which costs just 2p.
"The soft serve machine freezes the mix and injects air. Soft serve is soft, creamy, slow to melt and not mad cold. Half your ice cream is fresh air, that’s free, but the machine costs you 3p. To power the machine you’ve got to run the engine all day, that fuel costs you 53p. That diesel van costs you 9p."
Including the cost to the company too is also involved in the estimate.
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He said: "Trading license is 1p. Scoops, tubs, spoons are 1p. Insurance is 2p and wages are another 2p."
Mat went on to explain that the cones are classed as a biscuit and are zero-rated VAT, but that changes when ‘it’s covered in chocolate’.
The lawyer said: "VAT at 20 percent making it 42p. Mr Whippy makes £1.19 when you buy a 99.
"A good van like this one can sell 600 ice creams on a sunny day, making £44,000 a year. There’s 5,103 ice cream vans in the UK, churning over a cool £220,000,000 a year."
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So, Mr Whippy is balling from our flake 99 sales?
He added that it’s a great product: "There’s no cooking, no packaging, no waste, no advertising costs - just play the chimes. We love that music, but local councils don’t."
Because of the council’s ire about the jingle, some boroughs won’t allow it to be played before noon or after 7pm, and even when it’s chiming it needs to only be for 12-seconds and 2 minutes apart, under 80 decibels.
It can’t be played within 50-meters of a church on a Sunday, hospital or school and the van can’t return to the same street within two hours of last visiting.
That’s a lot of regulations for a simple song.
Topics: Food And Drink, Money, UK News, TikTok
Britt Jones