The tinny squawk of Greensleeves drifts through the air. You're possibly already thinking about icecream cones, and a flake buried in white gloop at a jaunty angle.
You're hearing the chug of a generator and an argument between a toddler and mother. You may be feeling suddenly, unaccountably, peckish.
For Carl Russell, Greensleeves means all these things, but something else besides.
"It means money. It's the tune of my life. It's the tune of my financial freedom. I love it. "
Russell, 34, is East Auckland's Mr Whippy. He sells soft-serve icecream all year but sales peak in summer, and especially over the Christmas break.
On Friday, Russell opened up the back of his van, where silver plastic bladders of premixed UHT milk and cream are stored in a fridge before being flash-frozen and mixed with air, extruded onto a cone and handed through a hatch.
Russell's is one of 60-odd Mr Whippy trucks across New Zealand. The brand came from the UK in 1964 and there are competitors with names like "Super Kool", but even they get called Mr Whippy.
With a reporter riding shotgun, and a photographer out back amid trays of sherbert powder and jars of bubblegum and jelly worms, Russell roamed the flat, empty, streets of Pakuranga and Half Moon Bay, selectively targeting the "money streets".
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/small-business/9577075/Meet-Mr-Whippy
No comments:
Post a Comment