It’s like a rite of passage: Listening to the familiar music getting louder as if announcing promises of cream and sugar, beckoning barefooted children to come running with cash that's just been grabbed from their parent's hand.
But who’s behind it all? Why are ice cream truck routes so hard to predict? How has the price of a simple ice cream climbed so much? These questions and more Vancouver Is Awesome set out to answer. With the recent heat wave smashing records across the province, perhaps there isn't a better time to understand more about these treats on wheels.
As it turns out, much of the Lower Mainland is served by just 10 ice cream trucks, all hailing from a garage in Coquitlam. The company that owns the trucks, Rainbow Ice Cream, is part of an ice cream-selling lineage dating back to the late 1950s.
Meedo Falou is the owner of Rainbow Ice Cream and has been for the last 20 years. Before starting his sweet endeavour, Falou worked for Dicky Dee Ice Cream, currently owned by Good Humor-​Breyers.
Of Lebanese background, Falou had been living in Toronto for a few years before moving to B.C. He saw an ad in a newspaper looking for drivers to sell ice cream and he called the number. Once Falou figured out where Langley was, using a map book (a what?), he went on his first run in Mission with another employee.
"I went with him on the training that day and we went on the Albion Ferry. He sold like $100 on the Albion Ferry and in those days ice cream prices were like a lot cheaper than now," Falou remembers. "The most expensive ice cream bar was like $2.50 and now the expensive ice cream bars, the Magnum or the Häagen-Dazs, they're like $6."
'Go and get lost in Langley'
Falou started to learn the hotspots like schools, townhouses and industrial areas. After that, he was promptly thrown into the deep end.
"The next day, the guy said, 'OK, well open your map book on Langley, this is Langley. Go and get lost in Langley.'" Falou says with a laugh. "So that's what I did!”
After a few years, Falou started to build his own fleet of trucks and carts, eventually gaining permits to sell in Vancouver and sending trucks out to special events on the streets of Abbotsford, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey, North and South Burnaby, Delta and Maple Ridge.
Falou worked to sell higher quality products and, more importantly, ensured the ice cream wouldn’t melt at the point of sale.
Falou recounts that ice cream trucks used to use gel ice packs and dry ice to keep the ice cream cold. By charging a series of batteries overnight, Falou explains, they were able to keep the freezers in the trucks running for 15 hours.
Map books 1, Google 0
Since then Falou has upgraded once more to the more industrial cold-plate freezers that can keep ice cream solid for an entire day.
While the technology around ice cream may have changed, Falou’s process for selling it hasn’t.
"We always tell [new drivers] to get a map book,” Falou says. “Some of them say, 'Well, I've got Google' but I say, 'Google is OK but a map book works better because I can show you on a map book where to go.'"
"The main key for this business is to drive slow and be patient,” Falou adds. “Give the customer time to come out. They hear the music, the kids start jumping up and down, they go... 'Mommy, mommy I want ice cream,' you know?"
'If you get lost, that's fine, as long as you're selling!'
As for where the drivers go, they have no set route -— just an area to cover. Falou explains drivers come to the garage at 10:30 a.m. to stock up on ice cream, collect their cash boxes and map books and they don’t return until sunset.
"If you get lost, that's fine, as long as you're selling!” Falou says laughing.
Of course, selling ice cream isn’t a year-round business. In the wintertime, Falou says business turns to maintaining the fleet of trucks and carts in preparation for the next summer season. The winter gives him time to repair or phase out older trucks but it comes with a great deal of more overhead and expenses.
Those expenses, Falou says, can translate to increased ice cream prices for the consumer but there are several other factors at play. The increasing price of dairy products is one reason and the fact that some of our favourite ice creams come from the United States, which adds to transportation costs. The price of gas also has an impact on the final price tag.
'I like to see the smile on the kids' faces'
With a relatively short window to make money and the price of ice cream steadily increasing, V.I.A. asked Falou why he has stayed in the ice cream racket for the last 20 years.
"Because I love it!" he responds. "I like to see the smile on the kids' faces when you're selling ice cream because I went a few times myself and I sold ice cream when I'm short of drivers and it’s fun. It’s a lot of fun."
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Falou says business was hit hard as many events he was to send trucks to were cancelled. However, with restrictions opening up, he's hopeful Rainbow Ice Cream can start bringing more smiles to the sweet-toothed children of Metro Vancouver.
