Ice Cream’s Winter Survival

Ice cream — who doesn’t like a double scoop of sweet, frosty, delicious, melt-in-your-mouth, cool-you-down ice cream on a hot summer day? What about a triple scoop of that frosty, chill-you-to-the-core experience during a blistery winter afternoon? For some reason, that doesn’t sound so pleasant anymore, does it? It’s true, icy treats aren’t as popular among ice cream lovers during winter months than in the summer, especially from standalone ice cream parlors. Regardless, these shops must survive… here is how they do it.

For a Limited Time Only – During winter months, especially in cold regions, ice cream customers tend to prefer warmer treats like cakes and cookies – back burning their thoughts of ice cream till summer. Ice cream shops have their work cut out for them and must lure in their customers if they wish to survive. One way they do this is by offering new flavors during seasons and holidays. Many ice cream parlors offer pumpkin concoctions in November, candy-cane flavored icy treats during Christmas and many other uncommon flavors to spike curiosity and ultimately bring in business.

Attract the Kids – Kids love ice cream. In fact, kids are ice cream shops most frequent visitors. It is crucial that ice cream shops continue to attract kids during the winter months. Some parlors do this by hosting birthday parties, others by offering special deals and promotions to encourage parents to bring their child in for an ice cream treat.

Cater to Adults – You can offer the best deals and promotions in town; however, if you have a drafty ice cream parlor, the last thing parents are going to do on their wintry Saturday is freeze to death for a cheap ice cream cone. Kids can’t get to your ice cream shop without their parents, and in the winter months, parents may opt to avoid your cool-me-down treats. In order to make an ice cream pit stop attractive to the parents, offer hot caffeinated beverages. As kids will eat ice cream no matter what the temperature is outside, it’s all about giving the parents a warm beverage or treat to look forward to.

If an ice cream parlor can’t figure out how to drive traffic in the winter months, they could risk going out of business. Even though the difference in production between summer and winter has lessened some, ice cream shop owners should still prepare for slower business during the cold season.

Want to know how Praline’s Own Made Ice Cream survives the winter months? Sorry, that’s top secret.