It's bonanza time for ice cream sellers, but can they make up for a wet June?
A wet and cold few weeks means most shops are playing catch-up.
IN A WEEK where the temperatures rose so high that a weather warning was needed to help us deal with that unusual yellow thing up in the sky, ice cream sellers are up the walls.
While around 20 Cornettos are being sold a minute in the good weather, according to HB estimates, the spell of fine weather followed a wet and cold few weeks. As a result, most sellers have been playing catch-up in recent days.
Yasmin Kahn of Teddy’s Ice Cream said they were “tired but happy” in their busy period – but didn’t expect this week’s takings to make up for the four preceding weeks of miserable weather.
“It’s fantastic, absolutely fantastic, it’s great to see all the happy faces,” she said.
“We’re working like the clappers – we’re selling a couple of thousand ice creams a day.
“We’ve no complaints, it’s great – we had a very quiet June, the weather was pretty miserable.”
People queue for an ice-cream at Teddy's in Dún Laoghaire.
Teddy’s has two shops and two mobile units in Dún Laoghaire in south Dublin, and another shop and two stalls on the seafront in Bray.
They’re hoping the weather keeps up for the Bray airshow this weekend, where around 80-90,000 people are expected.
Air conditioning
Niamh O’Kennedy of Murphy’s Ice Cream, which makes its products by hand in Dingle, Co Kerry, said her company was serving over 250 ice creams an hour last Saturday – or one every 15 seconds.
There were so many people in their Wicklow Street shop in Dublin that the air conditioning broke.
“I think Dublin got it much hotter than down here in Kerry,” O’Kennedy said.
Dingle rainwater blackcurrant sorbet.
“We’ve had a few hectic days alright – the shop managers are up the walls, but they’re smashing their sales targets every day.
“The Dublin shop are literally running out of ice cream, they’ve had to get their order in earlier.”
Murphy’s most popular sellers are the Dingle gin and their rainwater sorbets – made from rain in the Corca Dhuibhne gaeltacht in west Kerry.
US Vice President Joe Biden recently paid a visit to the Dublin branch, and on Friday Lost actor Jack Maxwell will pop into the Dingle shop to make ice cream with alcohol for the third series of US travel show Booze Traveller.
US Vice President Joe Biden leaves Murphy's Ice-Cream shop in Dublin
HB is predicting that 2.89 ice creams will be sold every second, during the hot spell – the same figure recorded during the 2014 heatwave.
They said they also typically sell 30,000 Cornettos and 21 Icebergers across the country on a hot day.
Written by Darragh Peter Murphy and posted on TheJournal.ie
