Excited kids run through parks and run down blocks for cones, bars and soft serve on sweltering summer days as the sound of the iconic jingle gets louder and the ice cream truck approaches.
Although frozen treats have been around in one form or another for thousands of years, inventions over the years have brought ice cream to the people. An innovation, the ice cream truck, has been attracting children and adults to the streets for a century. Trucks are now a staple of summer in the US
“Ice cream trucks changed the way people saw ice cream because they created a new level of accessibility that didn't exist before,” said Manish Vora, co-founder and co-CEO of Ice Cream Museumwhich started as a pop-up experience in 2016 and now has locations in multiple cities.
Advance sale of ice cream
Frozen sweets have been around for a long time; Ice cream's predecessors were popular in China and Japan, although Persia is noted as a sort of “homeland of ice cream,” said food historian Sarah Lohman. Persia was the first country to discover how to store ice and snow. They used giant freezers called yakhchāl.
Further developments in the history of ice cream came in the 16th century when alchemists discovered that adding salt or saltpetre to ice would lower the freezing point, he said. By the end of the century, people, mainly servants of elite houses, made ice cream.
“We don't really see it being sold regularly until the 18th century, when it would be made by confectioners and bought by wealthy households. And that price continues to drop throughout the 19th century due to various technological advances,” Lohman said. “That kind of shift from something that's served in private, wealthy homes to being a confection that everyone can enjoy is really happening in America.”
And it was a woman who made the next big leap for the industry. In the early 1840s, Pennsylvania inventor Nancy Johnson created the world's first crank ice cream freezer.
Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
“This tool, this resource was a big game changer,” Lohman said. “And almost at the same time, America was building an ice industry. A saw was created that could be dragged by horses across frozen lakes instead of being sawn by hand.”
America is a very dairy-based country, so the dairy and eggs needed for ice cream were affordable throughout the 19th century, Lohman said.
Italian immigrants began selling ice cream on the streets in the mid-19th century. They collected the flavors in glasses called penny licks. As the name suggests, it cost a penny.
“Throughout most of the 19th century, it would be incorporated into these single-serve leaded glass containers,” Lohman said. “A consumer would have to eat it right there using their tongue or fingers to scoop out the ice cream. And then they would lick the penny back to the vendor.”
The street vendors were very popular, especially at the end of the 19th century. There was a gradual movement away from penny licks as vendors realized they could sell more ice cream if customers could walk away with their treats. They started selling ice cream blobs on paper, then they started selling it in edible wrappers, like cookies and wafers.
The first ice cream trucks
The invention of ice cream truck it has largely been attributed to good humor. Ohio pastry chef and ice cream shop owner Harry Burt created chocolate covered ice cream and, at his son's suggestion, he froze a stick in the ice cream to give it a hand.
The auto industry had developed refrigerated vans to make it easier for suppliers to transport stock to stores, a Good Humor spokesman said. Burt had the idea to paint one of his refrigerated vans white, name it the Good Humor Ice Cream Sucker, and outfit it with five bells taken from his son's bob. His son donned a white uniform and cap to sell Good Humor bars from the truck.
good mood
After that, Burt outfitted a fleet of 12 hawker trucks with hoods and freezers so they could travel around selling frozen treats.
“Everyone loved their local ice cream trucks! It was an inexpensive way to get a daytime treat,” said a spokesperson for Good Humor.
The first trucks sold only Good Humor bars, but by 1926, Burt's added flavors, such as chocolate, Neapolitan malt and chocolate, according to the company. Sundae cups were added to ice cream trucks around 1928.
The salesmen wore white uniforms with black shoes, a red tie and a change belt. They trained for three days to be a “good mood man”.
George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images
“For children and adults alike, ice cream has always been a unifying force, inspiring connection and togetherness; in fact, ice cream trucks were successful even during the Great Depression, creating a momentary distraction for people in poverty,” said Vora.
Early in the ice cream truck's history, customers were limited to buying pre-made ice cream, as early trucks operated primarily as mobile freezers, Vora said. Over time, the trucks evolved to allow ice cream to be made on site and flavor customization.
The rise in popularity of ice cream trucks
Good Humor's fleet expanded in the 1930s to include wheelbarrows, bicycles, tricycles and shoulder boxes, a Good Humor spokesman said. In 1950, two thousand Good Humor vehicles were used to sell ice cream in neighborhoods across the United States; as popularity grew, Good Humor was able to further modify the trucks to begin selling soft serve ice cream.
Mister Softee, which is now the largest franchisor of soft-serve ice cream trucks in the U.S., began selling in 1956, according to the company's website. The company has more than 625 trucks and more than 350 franchise dealers operating in 18 states.
Walter Leporati/Getty Images
The 1950s and 1960s saw the peak in popularity of ice cream trucks, Vora said. It is estimated that there were as many as 10,000 trucks operating in the US at the time.
Good Humor sold its ice cream trucks in 1978 and began focusing on selling to grocery stores, according to a company spokesman. Some of the Good Humor trucks were purchased by ice cream distributors and others were sold to individuals.
Collectively, the ice cream industry today has an $11.4 billion impact on the US economy, but the ice cream truck industry faces some challenges. According to a 2022 International Dairy Foods Association survey, 84% of consumers prefer to buy ice cream at the grocery store and eat it at home.
Still, Vora considers trucks a staple of American life and said they're here to stay.
“What started as a simple idea in the 1920s has become a global phenomenon, with no slowdown in sight: people want to enjoy ice cream whenever and wherever they can, and the creation of ice cream trucks helped make – infinitely more possible and accessible,” said Vora.
