New York
CNN
—
It’s never been harder to be Mr. Softy.
There were once more than 2,000 Mister Softee trucks in 38 states during the company’s peak in the 1960s. There are now only about 630 Mister Softee trucks roaming neighborhoods and parks in 21 states.
Competition and rising costs hurt sales. Counterintuitive factors like increasingly hot weather are also hampering business. And broader social trends — such as shrinking American family sizes and even advances in technology — also play a role.
“There’s a lot more competition, especially in New York, than there was in the 1980s and 1990s,” Mike Conway, vice president of Mister Softee and grandson of the company’s co-founder, told CNN in a phone interview from the office of the company in Runnymede, New Jersey. “Ice cream has become more popular – more shops are making it. Everyone is getting into the business a little.”
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 a few years later for radio commercials, and it helped the company become the largest franchiser of ice cream trucks in the United States.
But the real key wasn’t the rattle. It was the soft serve ice cream. Not because customers liked it – although they do – but because it made better business sense.
“We found there was a demand for soft serve ice cream,” William Conway said in a 1991 interview. They sold soft serve ice cream because it was easier to serve and they needed the volume to make the business sustainable. “A local dairy developed the recipe, a friend drew our trademark ‘cone’ 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.
Most Mister Softee trucks are owned and operated by independent franchise dealers, many of whom are first generation immigrants and small business owners. Franchisees are assigned a specific neighborhood or area where they can sell. Within their designated territory, franchise owners set the prices of the ice cream and decide the best places to sell it.
Carlos Vasquez has owned a Mister Softee franchise for over a decade in downtown New York. He saw entering the industry as a way to achieve the American dream of saving money and buying a home.
But field assignments do not account for external competition, of course. Boutique ice cream, ice cream 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.
Vasquez has seen every part of the business become more expensive since the pandemic, including the licensing fees he pays the company, ice cream deliveries, gasoline and wear and tear on the trucks.
Then there are smoldering turf wars with independent trucks for coveted street corners. Mister Softee successfully sued upstart competitors for allegedly ripping off its design and jingle.
“We have to pay more money for the insurance. Half a million dollars. Politics is rising,” he said. “The support if something breaks on the truck. It’s a lot of work to maintain the truck.”
Milk and ice cream deliveries have also become more expensive. Wholesale ice cream inflation has increased 21% since 2020, and wholesale ice cream inflation has increased 25% over that period.
This forced him to raise prices. A cone of vanilla or chocolate ice cream now costs $5, up from $1 when it first started. Most days, he sells half as much ice cream as he once did.
“We cannot control [inflation]he said. “It’s part of the world.”
Perhaps surprisingly, the extreme heat is also hurting Mr Softy’s business. The equipment in the truck breaks down more easily when it’s very hot and customers are staying at home.
“If the weather is really hot, it’s not very good for business. It’s weird,” Vazquez said. “People don’t want to walk too much. It’s creamy and melty and you get dirty and want the extra wipes.
2024 is the hottest summer on record for about 100 US cities from Maine to California.
If you take the nation’s 50 largest 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 hurting even the big ice cream brands.
Unilever, the maker of ice cream brands such as Magnum, said last year that sales had fallen due to a heat wave sweeping Europe.
As for the weather, “there’s a sweet spot for the temperature,” Unilever’s chief financial officer, Graham Pitkettley, said at the time. “When it gets too hot, people shy away from ice cream and buy a cold drink instead,” he said.
Mister Softee’s business is a window into changes in neighborhoods, family sizes and children’s habits. Everything affects the trucks.
Families are smaller than they once were, and more families have both parents working, so kids aren’t running around the streets as much in the summer, Conway said. The average household size has fallen from 3.5 people to 2.5 people since 1940, according to the U.S. 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 also cater for more private events like birthday parties and 4th of July gatherings. And Mister Softee now has its own mobile app so people can find the nearest truck.
“Softee is an icon,” said Carlos Vasquez. “We have to stay in the industry.”