Food and Drink

Creamy cravings

Yet, Mister Softee’s ice cream still manages to keep its attraction. Varsity observed that one of its vans parked at the pedestrian area in Mong Kok attracted customers from all walks of life, despite competition from nearby rival stores. Five to six people were seen lining up to buy ice creams from the truck vendor in every 10 minutes, with most of them buying the signature product – soft ice cream crispy sugar cones.

Mister Softee prides itself in the delivery of fresh ice cream made to perfection.
“Our ice cream is different. Ours are creamier,” Ho said. He recounted that a fan had eaten six soft ice cream cones in one go.

The production method of Mister Softee remains a commercial secret, but the company said different kinds of milk for production such as whole milk, skimmed milk, cream, frozen cream, condensed milk products and milk solid were imported from Denmark, Australia and New Zealand.

While Mister Softee is known for its vanilla-flavoured soft ice cream, customer Leung Sze-wing, a 19-year-old university student, suggested that adding new flavours might increase the ice cream company’s competitiveness.

But diversity did not work for Mister Softee. One of its vendors, who identified himself only as Mr Cheung, said the sales dropped when chocolate and mango flavours were added to the line of soft ice cream products.
“The majority love vanilla,” he said.

While hard ice cream such as Nutty Drumstick, Large Cups and Jumbo Orange are also offered, soft ice cream has accounted for 80 per cent of the company’s total sales.

Despite the fierce competition, Mister Softee is confident about its business prospect. “Competition generates improvement,” manager Julie Chu said.
The company has expanded its business to Shanghai to extend its customer base to the mainland.

Ho said they did not have any special marketing plans, as the product itself offered enough attraction. “When there are people, there must be someone who likes to eat or want to eat ice cream,” he said.

But maintaining the business in Hong Kong has not been a path as smooth as its ice cream, as the company was forced to fight a hard battle to keep its mobile mode of operation more than 10 years ago.

At the time, the Urban Council tried to improve the street tidiness and stop renewing roving hawker licences.

[previous page] [next page]

A Mister Softee van parks at the pedestrian area in Mong Kok.