by Rebecca Hannant
Mr Moo’s ice cream shop in Skipsea is celebrating 20 years in business with an open day this weekend.
Since the Foreman family launched the business in 2003, Mr Moo’s has grown into a popular destination on the East Yorkshire coast serving a large range of naturally produced ice creams using locally sourced fresh ingredients.
The business also offers a full food menu and benefits from a farm walk that offers customers the chance to head down to the beach with their ice cream.
Current owner Harry Foreman took over the business during Covid as his parents stepped back to concentrate on their caravan site.
He said: “The scale of production has changed quite a lot since 2003 – we went from not making very much ice cream at around 1,000 litres a year to 100,000 litres a year. Our machinery has been updated to keep up with the demand.”
Over the years, the shop has served an ever-expanding range of ice cream flavours including White Chocolate, Strawberry Swirl, Salted Caramel and many more.
Harry added: “We have around 35 flavours, and we try and do four or five new ones over the year.”
As part of the anniversary celebrations, Mr Moo’s has also teased a special edition menu, with new flavours being introduced over the weekend including Lemon and Lime and Turkish Delight.
On the Saturday they will host a farm walk ice cream trail from 10am to 4pm, which will see participants walk down the trail on the way to the beach and find the ice cream flavours located along the route. Once completed, participants will receive a little pot of ice cream. Entry is £1.
The weekend will also host face painting and balloon modelling. The mascot Mr Moo will also be making several appearances over the weekend.
Speaking of the anticipation leading up to the anniversary, owner Harry Foreman said: “Everyone is excited, and we will be having a staff barbecue on Saturday night. “We have our manager Ellen who has been here 10 years.
“Then we have Lauren, Alice, Maddie and George. They do a good job. Because it is the holidays, they are all working hard. They make sure things are running as efficiently as possible.”
As well as a large and expanding range of ice cream flavours, the shop also benefits from a range of products available for wholesale and is stocked by several businesses across Hull and the Yorkshire coast.
In recent times, the business has also had to adapt to changing times and an increase in demand as the shop has grown in popularity.
Harry added: “During Covid we were shut down by Boris, and when we could open it again, we couldn’t open inside so we had the window. It was all very makeshift, but it worked very well. We evolved quite a lot due to Covid, and had it not happened then I don’t know where we would be.”
Despite facing some uncertainty during Covid, the ice cream shop quickly bounced back and has once again become a popular tourist destination for beachgoers. Harry said the business was also customer-focused and they were always trying to make things bigger and better.
Harry said: “We’re always trying to make things better for the customer, such as ways we can get through cones quicker or make food quicker. Pre-Covid, people had to wait quite a lot in queues, and we didn’t have the capacity to get through the queue as quickly as we could now. We try to give customers as much experience as possible and work out what we can offer them.”
