Glossary · Ice cream & treats
Mr. Whippy
Definition
Mr. Whippy is the British soft serve brand launched in the late 1950s. The name is now widely used for any soft serve sold from an ice cream van.
Mr. Whippy began as a brand of soft serve ice cream sold from vans in Britain in the late 1950s. The vans, the cheerful logo and the swirled cone spread quickly, and within a generation the name had become shorthand for van soft serve in general, much as people say Hoover for any vacuum cleaner.
Today many independent operators trade in Mr. Whippy or Wall's livery. When guests at a party say they want "a Mr. Whippy", they nearly always mean a soft serve cone, usually with a Flake. Both of the vans shown on our site, one red and one cream, wear Mr. Whippy and Wall's livery. Underneath the classic look, everything used to serve runs on batteries, so there is no engine or generator running while we serve.
Related terms
- Soft serveSoft serve is ice cream frozen and whipped to order in a machine, then piped straight into a cone or tub. It is softer and lighter than scooped ice cream.
- 99 FlakeA 99 Flake is a soft serve cone with a short Cadbury Flake bar pushed into the top. Where the name "99" comes from is genuinely unknown.
- ChimesChimes are the short tunes an ice cream van plays to let people know it has arrived. Their use in public is governed by a code of practice.
- Electric ice cream vanAn electric ice cream van powers its freezers and soft serve machine from batteries, so it serves without an engine or generator running.
- The full glossary54 terms, from soft serve to street trading licences.
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