North coast ice cream fans have Morelli's sales licked!

The North Coast reigns supreme for ice cream as Morelli's ice cream have revealed that a whopping 35% of their summer sales took place in Portrush, Portstewart and Ballycastle.

New figures released this week have revealed the habits of Northern Ireland’s ice cream fans, with flavours, toppings and traditions forming the Morelli’s Ice Cream Report for summer 2017.

Northern Ireland’s famous family-owned ice cream brand looked at sales of the frozen treat throughout the summer months and the data reveals:

Honeycomb was top of the flavours chart for the first time ever, narrowly beating the traditional number one, Double Cream Vanilla.

And it seems, we’re a nation of simple tastes. Morelli’s makes over 50 flavours of ice cream but 30% of its sales were from Honeycomb and Double Cream Vanilla.

As a country, we’re choosing tubs to eat our favourite treat from as they accounted for 60% of sales, versus 40% for cones.

The Sunday drive is alive and well - the tradition of a family drive on a Sunday has helped it become the most popular day for ice cream sales, with purchases 50% higher on this day than any other day of the week.

Tradition also shines through in the toppings table, with chocolate vermicelli and 100s & 1000s accounting for 50% of toppings sales across the country.

The North Coast reigns supreme for ice cream as 35% of Morelli’s sales took place in Portrush, Portstewart and Ballycastle.

The data also revealed that the brand’s new flavours proved popular with customers. Earlier this year, Morelli’s launched Pink Prosecco Pop and Kinderelli and the creations feature in the top 15 flavours by sales across Northern Ireland.

Summer ’17 has also seen a growing number of health-conscious ice cream eaters opt for sorbets. Mango and Watermelon sorbet is increasing in popularity and Morelli’s reports that its frozen yoghurt range, made using Clandeboye Yoghurt, had its best summer to date in terms of sales.

Commenting on the ice cream trends, Arnaldo Morelli from Morelli’s said: “We really are a nation of ice cream lovers and our data shows that in some aspects, we’re changing our habits to more modern tastes but in other ways, tradition still shines through.

“New flavours like Pink Prosecco are very popular and tubs have overtaken the sales of cones, but we love the same toppings we did 50 years ago and the traditional Sunday family drive is still going strong. We’re also seeing a real movement towards year-round sales, with the summer peak spreading across the year which is great news for manufacturers and customers alike.”

The sales figures have been released by Morelli’s to celebrate a record year for the company, which has seen it expand into Tesco Ireland and open a new, purpose-built, flagship ice cream parlour in Portrush.