Mr Moo's, Skipsea: How a Yorkshire family farm was inspired to open an ice cream parlour by Ben & Jerry's

“It has been phenomenal. We thought we had done well last year with everyone having to stay in the UK for their holidays, but we’ve matched that and some. We have made the same amount as last year but there is even less left than we had in the freezers in 2021 than there is this time.

“We were totally overrun throughout the main summer holiday period and it really was mad last week. We try to keep ourselves just a bit in front on production as we don’t want huge quantities stuck in freezers and that is most certainly the case at the moment.

Harry said he was offered his opportunity to spend a life in ice cream when he was in his early teens and back then immediately gave his reply, motivated perhaps more by the ice cream itself than a career prospect.

“My parents Judith and Stephen were dairy farmers and had become concerned with the price they were getting for their milk and wanted to add value. They had taken me with them on what I had thought was a family holiday to America, not to perhaps give me an interview for my future.

“They asked ‘is this something you would like to do?’. I said something like ‘oh yes, I like ice cream’ and here we are now.

“We opened in 2003. At the time we had a herd of 130 dairy cows. The original plan was to do both dairy farming and ice cream. I had been getting to the stage where I could help with the cows, bringing them in, milking and getting them out again but I was still at school.

“When my parents saw what Mr Moo’s was doing in terms of retail and the wholesale business we had developed all along the coast they knew we couldn’t physically do everything, so we decided to put all our eggs in one basket and stopped milking cows in 2005.

“Dad has cattle now, a much smaller suckler herd of 35 beef cattle with a Salers bull and mainly Red Poll-cross and some Limousin-cross cows.

Harry said that Mr Moo’s simply took over and they have never looked back.

“We had to go this way, wholly ice cream to manage it properly, look after the team, to have the making of ice cream run smoothly and everything else run properly.

“I am self-taught on the production side. I went to Scarborough 6th Form College, but when I finished there in 2006 I came straight back into production here. Dad’s time was already taken up with the wholesale. I had to step up and make ice cream.

Harry said the milk used in Mr Moo’s is from East Yorkshire dairy farms and that the collection of the raw milk is by local dairy farming family and milk business Chestnut Dairies at Seaton near Hornsea.

“All of the raw milk that we pasteurise here is collected by the Varleys with their Chestnut Dairies tanker and is brought straight here. Sue and the family make sure we are never short, even in August when normally the amount of milk produced goes down just at the time we need it to be up.

When Covid happened Mr Moo’s was affected in much the same way as many other businesses but Harry said that while he wouldn’t want it to happen again it provided the business with an opportunity to press the reset button.

“In the summer months we hadn’t been coping very well in the years before Covid. The way our retail was structured here at Skipsea we had only one counter inside and one window outside.

“When we were allowed to open again we made three separate serving windows outside with three tills and three scooping cabinets as we thought it might help us in the long run for those who come and just want cones. It worked really well. Last year we put a new modular building in place and upped that to five separate serving windows. Now at each window you can order your cones, sundaes, drinks.

“Everything else inside is as it was but the separate serving windows really help in summer and we wouldn’t have had time to think of that if we’d been trading normally.

“We also dialled back a little on the wholesale side. We have always sold Mr Moo’s really well up and down the coast from the Holderness coast to Runswick Bay and we cover all of the East Riding and bit of North Yorkshire. We used used to go elsewhere but it wasn’t as cost effective. Another area that became more apparent through lockdown.

Harry said there has been a realignment of the various businesses at Southfield.

“Everything before Covid was with the farm partnership but now Mr Moo’s Ltd is one business; the caravan site we’ve recently expanded is another and the farm another.

“My wife Charlotte is an accountant and now helps with business end of Mr Moo’s. We also have an amazing team including Ellen Sherman as manager; Lauren Atkinson, assistant manager; Alice Oakley, ice cream assistant production manager. Nothing would have been possible without these three.

Harry and Charlotte have a two-year old daughter Eleanor and Harry said he doesn’t foresee a similar conversation taking place that he had with his parents any time yet.

“She likes ice cream though. And so do we! We are in such a prime location here and we’ve won several REYTA awards!