Thanks to the hottest UK summer in decades, a Kent ice cream maker’s sales are soaring. Simply Ice Cream, a Produced in Kent member that supplies the likes of Waitrose, Co-op, Morrisons and numerous farm shops, independents and delis with its products across the whole of Kent and the South East, has revealed a 10% growth from the same period last year.
“We’ve been flat out,” said managing director Sally Newall, “it’s always busy this time of year with so many shows but we’ve sold out at every one. We continue to pick up a number of new customers on a weekly basis as the demand for cooling treats increases with no sign of the heatwave abating.”
To celebrate this achievement, the firm launched a light-hearted survey among several hundred people across Kent, to find out the most popular flavours and also ice cream eating habits. The outright winner was Honeycomb, with a whopping 36% majority, followed closely by Salted Caramel and Vanilla in third place.
The people that eat the most ice cream in Kent were revealed to be the retirees, with 38% choosing to eat it several times a week. A whooping 71% of mums and dads said they only eat it on a special day out, while 89% of students said they need no excuse to eat ice cream.
Most people in Kent buy ice cream by the 500ml family pot size and decant it into bowls or eat it straight out of the tub on the sofa. The most popular places to eat ice cream are at the beach, on a special day out or served with pudding in a restaurant or at a dinner party.
The survey also found out that people living in South Kent are most likely to enjoy eating vanilla straight from a tub on the beach. Those living in North Kent are least likely to enjoy the fruit flavours, while those in West Kent were more varied, choosing three top winners, including honeycomb, chocolate and vanilla. Finally, the people of East Kent are least likely to eat ice cream at a dinner party and most likely to have it as a treat on a special day out.
Simply Ice Cream’s survey was also answered by a few Londoners and discovered that they are so busy that none have ever decanted ice cream into a bowl to eat it. Moreover, people from Sussex are the most frequent ice cream eaters of all, eating it on a weekly basis.
