If the heat returns with a fury, so will the coolant. For ice cream manufacturers, summer can’t arrive fast enough, as sales have already reached pre-Covid levels. It’s only March. Ice cream sales are expected to shatter all previous records this summer, according to current patterns.
Due to the lockdown and other issues, the previous two years have been dull, and ice cream sales have plunged to an all-time low, plunging more than 85 percent. However, Amul’s ice cream sales in the first 15 days of March have increased compared to the fiscal year 2020 “R. S. Sodhi made the announcement. When it comes to ice cream sales, we don’t even take the past two years into account,” Sodhi said. Amul, which controls 41% of the organised ice cream industry in India and is valued at over Rs. 4,000 crores, intends to rely completely on in-house consumption beginning in the summer of 2020.
The ice cream segment is driven by in-house consumption, out-of-home consumption, and the HoReCa (hotels, restaurants, and catering) segment. According to him, COVID-19 limitations have had an impact on both out-of-home consumption and the HoReCa industry.
The reinstatement of limitations in the summer of 2021 threatened to dampen ice cream manufacturers’ joy as sales began to plummet again, but the recent relaxation of limits has renewed confidence.
The topping on top of the sundae for ice cream sales was allowing the night curfew to be lifted. “Without a curfew, there is actually a fantastic mood among people who are coming out at night in peace and having ice cream with their loved ones,” said Pradeep, who developed and sells ice cream in Ahmedabad. He went on to explain that while the brand had suffered huge losses in recent years, a good return this year will serve to sweeten the bitter past.
“Footfalls have been recorded since mid-February, when the weather had only recently begun to warm. People have lost their dread of having a sore throat or a cold from eating ice cream since the number of COVID-19 cases has decreased. If this trend continues, we can anticipate pre-pandemic sales figures with confidence.” Parth Patel, a fourth-generation entrepreneur and owner of a tiny ice cream shop in Ahmedabad, agreed.