FREE ICECREAM FOR SUMMER

Here’s a big scoop for you: Kiwis love their icecream. Turns out that, on average, we eat 23 litres of the cold, sweet stuff per person each year.

The news that we’re greedy icecream scoffers comes as Tip Top celebrates its 80th birthday.

While researching the occasion, the company found its biggest-selling icecream outlet was, surprisingly, in the cooler climes of Dunedin. There, the famous Rob Roy Dairy sold the most Tip Top scooped icecream this year — 60,000 litres — followed by Napier’s Cool Cats at just under 40,000 litres.

Vanilla, boysenberry and choco- late were the company’s biggest sellers across the country this year, but it found that when the weather warmed up people vetoed icecream altogether.

It found as soon as it hit 23C, Kiwis preferred to eat ice blocks instead. Good job it makes plenty of them — 13 million Trumpets, 4 million Jelly Tips and 8 million Popsicles a year, to be precise.

Tip Top managing director Kim Ballinger wanted to thank the Kiwi customers who kept the company going year after year, with the Herald

on Sunday giveaway (see inset). “We love making Kiwis smile every day and it’s those moments of connection that really are priceless. For me personally, Tip Top icecream affords me an extra few minutes with the kids every night while we religiously divvy up the Goody Goody Gum Drops and share the bowl around the table.”

In 1936, Len Malaghan and Albert Hayman first opened a parlour in Wellington, serving icecream made from fresh milk and cream and locally sourced ingredients.

As the business grew, the duo opened Tip Top Corner in Mt Wellington in the early 1960s, where the factory still resides today.