Ice cream van

In some locations, ice cream van operators have diversified to fill gaps in the market for soft drinks, using their capacity for refrigerated storage to sell chilled cans and bottles.

Early ice cream vans utilize electro-mechanical music boxes, with electronic systems becoming more common in the late 20th century.

In the United States and Canada, ice cream truck songs include "The Band Played On", "Camptown Races", "Brahms' Lullaby", "The Entertainer", "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man", "It's a Small World", "La Cucaracha", "Little Brown Jug", "The Mister Softee Jingle", "Oh!

A summer heatwave can provoke a massive upturn in fortunes for a few days, but after the weather has cooled sales drop off dramatically.

This has also led to some ice cream van vendors diversifying and selling other products such as crisps, chips, burgers or hot dogs from their vehicles at other times of the year.

[5] There also exists a nationwide code of practice[6] for the use of chimes, which limits the volume to 80 dB and the duration to twelve seconds, but these are rarely observed nor enforced.

The traditional chimes for ice cream vans in the United Kingdom is "Greensleeves" or "Waltzing Matilda",[7] although there are also variants that play popular folk and children's songs, much like the American equivalents.

[10] The company has also been developing a fully electric on-board battery system to power the soft-scoop machines it fits; the first all-electric van was expected to be delivered in the summer of 2019.

Not satisfied with the traditional approach of cruising for customers, some operators such as gourmet ice cream sandwich maker Coolhaus[12] are developing followings on social media sites and "announcing" the location of their trucks.

The ice cream vans can be heard from afar, and attract customers to the street by playing the iconic tune "Norge rundt", symbolizing their presence all over the country.