The last school weeks in 2026

The last week before the school holidays is always the busiest period of the year for ice cream vendors. This year was even more challenging, because the final school week in North Rhine-Westphalia was immediately followed by the one in the southern Netherlands. That meant two weeks of being fully committed!

These weeks are usually booked up well in advance, especially by schools that want to treat their students before the holidays begin. Companies also often organize their summer gatherings during this period. This year was extra busy because, in addition, we also had an assignment for 13 nursing homes.

Over the past 12 days, we have only had one day off. On all the other days, we were usually on the road with three ice cream vans at the same time. Our business premises, which are normally full of ice cream vans, looked like this during the day: not a single ice cream van in sight. Sometimes it felt like a pit stop: an ice cream van would briefly come in, where the cleaning team quickly cleaned it and restocked it with fresh ice cream and new cones. After that, it was back on the road to the next assignment. At the end of the day, everyone helped to clean everything again.

Of course, there are also people who want to book an ice cream van at the last minute. We even received requests from Amsterdam and Friesland. Usually, we have to say no, but we made an exception for Den Hulster, a large school community in Venlo. They wanted to provide all their students with an ice cream on the last day of school, but our schedule was already completely full. In consultation with them, we therefore rented out our “Ice Bear” and our “Ice Bar”, together with a large supply of ice cream. The teachers took on the role of ice cream men and women and scooped all the ice creams themselves.

Finally, here are some statistics from the past two school weeks:

• more than 10,000 ice creams scooped;

• visited 18 schools, 14 care institutions and 20 companies;

• processed approximately 1,500 liters of ice cream;

• one customer ordered 35 scoops of ice cream, but we also had two customers who each ordered 2,000 scoops.

We are tired now, but very satisfied. Fortunately, things will be a little quieter next week.