The award-winning family-owned Joe’s Ices celebrates 100 years in Sheffield
Joe’s Ices has been run by four generations of the same family
If you happen to be taking a walk through Rother Valley on a particularly hot summer’s day and decided to buy an ice-cream, chances are you will have bought it from a Joe’s Ices van.
It has been a staple for those in the region with a sweet tooth for 100 years and the company’s popularity shows no signs of thawing out any time soon.
“This year, we’re celebrating 100-years,” owner Joseph McNeil says. “My great grandfather, Joe Molinari, came over from northern Italy and arrived in Sheffield of all places.”
Joseph is speaking in the car park outside The Waterfront - a brand-new venue at Rother Valley - about this much-loved local institution and award-winning producer of some of the UK’s finest selection of ice cream.
It was Joseph’s great grandfather who decided to start making ice cream, as a lot of Italian immigrants did at the time. He started out in Beighton and the family carried on ever since.
“Originally they used to sell from a horse and cart,“ Joseph explains. “The ice cream would have been made fresh in the morning and then delivered across the local area.
”We started out on Queen’s Road in Beighton originally, but shortly after that we moved to the corner of Woodhouse Lane.” The factory and shop remains on the same spot to this day.
Over the years much changed, Joseph says, including the introduction of the modern ice cream van.
This change in available technologies has had an impact on how the business operates as well as the reach of the business. A fleet of 12 vehicles serve up the delicious frozen treat to a number of local areas, including Aston, Beighton, Handsworth and Woodhouse.
Joseph says: “We also supply independently to other ice cream vans, restaurants, wholesalers, shops and ice cream parlours.
“The majority of our scoop ice-cream is sold out of our factory shop in Beighton, we also sell our own whippy mix through our vans at Rother Valley and Clifton Park.
“We also operate in Derby, Leicestershire, the Derbyshire Dales and Rotherham, as well as events throughout the country as well.”
As for Joseph’s favourite ice cream, he said: “It’s probably the mint choc-chip, it’s a stalwart and probably the third biggest-selling flavour that we do.”
Vanilla remains Joe’s best selling staple, using a recipe that has remained foundational for 100 years, the company also recently introduced flavours such as cookie dough and Kinder Bueno.
Like the generation before him, Joseph is passionate about the product, the business, and retaining the original ethos and recipes.
”It is still the original recipe’,” Joseph says about the much-loved vanilla scoops. “But with a few modern tweaks as ingredients have progressed.”
A strong passion for ice cream curation has been passed down each generation, with the fifth generation imminent.
As for Joseph, he is president of the Ice-Cream Alliance - the only UK trade association for ice cream manufacturers and retailers. He was also the youngest president in its history, too.
As for what you can expect when you visit one of Joe’s Ices ice cream vans, there are more new flavours to come, but Joseph’s lips were frozen shut when it came to giving us a sprinkling of a tease.
Keep your eyes peeled for a new flavour announcement on the horizon.
With summer just around the corner and the promise of warmer weather almost in touching distance - plenty of locals will be tucking into Joe’s classic flavours in the coming months - and generations to come.
You can find Joe’s Ices at 107 Woodhouse Lane, Beighton, Sheffield.
Find out more about Joe’s Ices here: http://www.joes-ices.co.uk/