Interesting Facts about Soft Serve: Many People’s Soft Spot!

There’s no doubt regardless of the season of the year ice cream is one of people’s favourite comfort foods. Of course now with the rise in health awareness thanks to the various well-being trends many are looking for healthier alternatives like frozen yogurt, or still keeping it within the realm of ice cream but with more air bubbles and less room for dairy fat, i.e. choosing the soft-serve alternative.

Many have a soft spot for soft serve! This is something to have in mind if you’re planning on venturing in business and becoming your own boss. What’s not to love about it? It’s ice cream that’s soft and offers less chances of a brain freeze.

Opening your ice cream business can be profitable because we Aussies love this savoury treat, and soft serve is getting as popular as regular ice cream, even going as far as getting gourmet status thanks to the different ingredients you can use, so you can expect to find great deals on equipment.

Yes, this goes for when you buy soft serve machine too with the features you most require. This could be both energy-efficiency and electronic control on the consistency which makes it an investment that’s your money’s worth.

So, what do we know of soft serve other than the fact it contains less dairy fat than regular ice cream? Well, the story of soft serve began in the 1930s in the US, and it’s become so popular they even have their Soft Serve Ice Cream Day, 19 August specifically. You don’t have to have a national day to be able to enjoy the delicacy, any day can be your soft serve day, right!?

There’s an ongoing battle between the two US soft serve rivals, Carvel and Dairy Queen, as to who was the first one to make the soft serve, though considering the years as to when they started serving them it would be Carvel to win.

As the story goes, founder Tom Carvel accidentally stumbled upon the product because his ice cream truck had a flat tyre and he decided to sell his melting ice cream in 1934, whereas Dairy Queen founder J.F. McCullough and son developed the formula in 1938.

Unlike machines at their time, when you buy soft serve machine today you can expect to benefit an ergonomic design, easy to use as well as move, and count on innovative stirring system and topicalised air version for high performance levels.

As interesting as the battle of rivals may seem, there’s also a fun myth taking us all the way to the UK, connecting this delicacy with none other than the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher.

This story was spread mainly by her political opponents, going as far back as her work as a chemist at a food manufacturing company, J.Lyons and Co. who at the time were partners with US distributor Mister Softee.

What’s further interesting to note is it goes by different names over the world, like Mr Whippy in the UK, Candy in Argentina, Semi-frozen in Portugal, Soft ice in several places in Europe, including Germany and Norway, and Softee in India to name some. Call it what you may, one thing is certain, it’s the taste that can make any day better!