Well, that’s it, the summer holidays are officially over, leaving ice cream business owners with a very important task… planning for the autumn and winter months.
Whilst it may still be some way off, Halloween will soon be upon us, and with it comes a tremendous opportunity for your parlour to capitalise on the excitement surrounding the spookiest of seasons.
We would always recommend getting a head start on Halloween preparations, but how can you ensure that you are capitalising effectively on the day? With scary ice cream flavours of course!
Pun-tastic ice creams
As you may well have guessed, we are huge fans of puns and therefore we think ice cream puns in your gelato or ice cream are a must-have around any major festivity, particularly Halloween.
You can have some real fun here and create some deliciously spooky flavours for trick or treaters (both children and adults alike) to enjoy. Here’s some punny inspiration…
Boo-nana – A white chocolate base with bright yellow banana ripple to make a spookily delicious gelato.
Cherry Maniac – A white based ice cream with bright red cherry ripple to mimic blood (you can even throw some body part sweets into the mix!).
Twix or Treat – A year-round favourite with a spooky twist, mix biscuit paste into your base before rippling through a toffee, then adding a biscuit crumb and stracciatella.
Cookie (or BOO-kie) Monster – You could have some great fun decorating this one; add blue vanilla paste into your base before rippling an Oreo or cookie style ripple.
Pan-creeps – A deliciously creepy ice cream; add pancake paste into your base before using a Nutella-style ripple.
Spooky ice cream fit for the big screen
When you’ve got your fair share of pun-based ice creams in your cabinet, you can turn to scary film and tv for inspiration!
Stranger Things
Utilise the popularity of this hit tv show with some ELEVEN out of ten ice cream flavours for your customers.
The Upside Down Cake – A pineapple paste in your base with caramel ripple and a caramelised biscuit crumb to make the most deliciously mind-bending upside down ice cream.
Demagorgan Pie – A chocolate based ice cream with a strong red cherry ripple and chocolate biscuit crumb to make a tasty gelato that you can really dema-gorge on!
Hocus Pocus
The Hokey Pokey – Originating from New Zealand, the Hokey Pokey flavour takes vanilla ice cream and adds lumps of honeycomb and chocolate ripple.
Goosebumps
Gooseberry Bumps – Viewer beware, you’re in for a scare. Use mixed berries paste in your ice cream base for a perfectly spooky gelato.
Boo-tiful ice cream decoration
As you can see from Jonny’s picture with our friend ‘Fred the skull’, decoration is highly effective in a Halloween ice cream cabinet. Using decorations that can be sanitised such as skulls and witches’ legs as well as spooky-style sweets (like vampire teeth) will make all the difference and your efforts seem more like an event. You can really let your imagination run wild and the options are quite literally endless!
Do you trick or treat?
Once you have a cabinet full of eerie flavours for your customers, will you go that one step further with a trick or treat?
We have known several parlours to take on the nasty (yet ingenious) trick of hiding chilli flakes in their chocolate ice cream, before asking customers to trick or treat. Obviously paying customers may not want a full ‘tricked’ ice cream, so instead we would recommend using small spoons for tasters which will prove to be a successful marketing tactic this Halloween.
So there you have it, how to capitalise on the Halloween festivities in your business. Be sure to tag Antonelli and the ICA into your parlour’s spook-tacular pictures on social media this Halloween so we can see what you’re up to!
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