It’s never been harder to be Mister Softee

By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN

New York (CNN) — It’s never been harder to be Mister Softee.

Once, there were more than 2,000 Mister Softee trucks in 38 states during the company’s peak in the 1960s. Now, there are only around 630 Mister Softee trucks looping around neighborhoods and parks in 21 states.

Competition and rising costs are hurting sales. Counter-intuitive factors like increasingly hot weather are also denting business. And broader social trends – like the shrinking sizes of American families and even the advance of technology – play a role, too.

“There’s a lot more competition, especially in New York, than there was in the 1980s and 1990s,” Mike Conway, the vice president of Mister Softee and grandson of the company’s co-founder, told CNN in a phone interview from the company’s office in Runnemede, New Jersey. “Ice cream has become more popular — more stores are doing it. Everybody is getting into the business a little bit.”

Mister Softee trucks have been around since 1954, when two brothers, James and William Conway, started the business in Philadelphia. An advertising agency created the iconic jingle several years later for radio commercials, and it helped propel the company into the largest franchiser of ice cream trucks in the United States.

But the real key wasn’t the jingle. It was the soft-serve ice cream. Not because customers loved it – although they do – but because it made better business sense.

“We found there was a demand for soft ice cream,” William Conway said in a 1991 interview. They sold soft ice cream because it was easier to serve and they needed volume to make the business sustainable. “A local dairy developed the recipe, a friend drew up our ‘conehead’ trademark, and I came up with the name, six letters in each word.”

But some Mister Softee franchise owners are questioning how much longer they can stay in business.

From fancy flavors to ice cream turf wars

Most Mister Softee trucks are owned and operated by independent franchise dealers, many of them first-generation immigrants and small business owners. Franchisees are given a designated neighborhood or area where they can sell. Within their assigned turf, franchise owners set ice cream prices and decide the prime selling spots.

Carlos Vazquez has been a Mister Softee franchise owner for more than decade in downtown New York City. He saw entering the industry as a way to achieve the American dream of saving money and buying a home.

But the turf assignments don’t account for outside competition, of course. Boutique ice cream, gelato and dessert shops like Van Leeuwen and Oddfellows have popped up in neighborhoods and malls across the country. And it’s not just ice cream shops and trucks — Shake Shack and other chains are selling more milkshakes, too.

Vazquez has seen every part of the business get more expensive since the pandemic, including licensing charges he pays to the company, ice cream supplies, gas and wear and tear on the trucks.

Then there are the simmering turf wars with independent trucks for coveted street corners. Mister Softee has successfully sued upstart competitors for allegedly ripping off its design and jingle.

Inflation in a cone

“We have to pay more money on the insurance. Half a million dollars. The policy goes up,” he said. “The maintenance, if something broke on the truck. The labor for the maintenance on the truck is a lot.”

Milk and ice cream supplies have also gotten more expensive. Wholesale inflation on ice cream has increased 21% since 2020, and wholesale inflation on ice cream cones has increased 25% during that stretch.

That has forced him to raise prices. A cone with vanilla or chocolate ice cream now costs $5, up from $1 when he first started. He sells half as much ice cream on most days as he once did.

“We cannot control [inflation],” he said. “It’s part of the world.”

Hot weather – but not ice cream weather

Perhaps surprisingly, extreme heat is also denting Mister Softee’s business. The equipment in the truck breaks down more easily when it’s too hot, and customers stay home.

“If the weather is really hot, it’s not really good for business. It’s weird,” said Vazquez. “People don’t want to have to walk too much. It’s creamy and melts and you get dirty and you ask for the extra napkins.”

2024 has been the hottest summer on record to date for around 100 US cities from Maine to California.

If you take the country’s 50-biggest cities and add up the number of days above 95 degrees, there have been at least 1,071 this summer — 161 more than the average over the past decade for the same period.

Extreme heat is even denting big ice cream brands.

Unilever, the maker of ice cream brands like Magnum, said last year that sales dropped because of a heat wave sweeping through Europe.

When it comes to the weather, “there’s a sweet spot for temperature,” Unilever’s chief financial officer, Graeme Pitkethly, said at the time. “When it gets too hot, people move away from ice cream and buy a cold drink instead,” he said.

As goes the nation, so goes Mister Softee

The Mister Softee business is a window into changes in neighborhoods, family sizes and children’s habits. It all impacts the trucks.

Families are smaller than they once were and more families have both parents working, so kids aren’t running around on the streets as much during the summer, Conway said. The average household size has dropped from 3.5 people to 2.5 people since 1940, according to the US Census Bureau.

“Kids don’t play outside as much as they used to,” he said.

Mister Softee franchisees are adapting by extending the ice cream season: starting earlier in the spring and ending as late as November. They’re also catering to more private events like birthday parties and July 4 gatherings. And Mister Softee now has its own mobile app so people can find the nearest truck.

“Softee is an icon,” Carlos Vazquez said. “We have to stay in the industry.”

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