Voice
Representation
We respond to consultations, brief officials and put the trade's case to government, regulators and the national media. When the rules change, we are in the room.
Est. 1944
Eighty years of standing up for ice cream.
The Ice Cream Alliance is the only trade association in the United Kingdom for the people who make, sell and serve ice cream. From single vans to national manufacturers, one membership puts the whole trade behind you.
Our story
Founded in wartime, still working for the trade today.
The alliance was formed in 1944, when ice cream production was restricted and the trade needed one clear voice. That founding purpose has not changed. We exist so that no ice cream business, however small, has to face regulation, legislation or a bad headline on its own.
Today we represent makers, parlours, mobilers, wholesalers and the suppliers who serve them. We sit at the table with government departments and enforcement bodies, we publish the only trade magazine for the sector, we run the industry's national show and we recognise excellence through our competitions.
Members get practical help the day they need it: a technical query answered, a label checked, a food safety system that stands up to inspection, and a network of people who have already solved the problem in front of you.
1944The year the trade came together, and we have not stopped since
Then and now
We’ve evolved to meet the trade’s needs.
From judging tables and road safety campaigns to the Industry Awards Evening and the Golden Scoop Awards, the alliance has changed with the industry it represents. What hasn’t changed is what we stand by: our heritage, our codes and our standards are the things we keep close to our traditions.
What we do in depth
Four jobs, done properly.
Support
Advice and compliance
On demand legal and technical advice, a full food safety management handbook, allergen and labelling guidance, and help preparing for inspection.
Recognition
Competitions
The Golden Scoop Awards and Parlour of the Year give members independent, credible recognition they can market with.
Network
Events and media
The Ice Cream & Artisan Food Show, the quarterly magazine, the supplier directory and nine regional divisions that meet through the year.
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Regional divisions
Nine divisions. National reach, local meetings.
Every member belongs to a regional division run by members in that part of the country. Divisions meet through the year, share local trading knowledge, run social events and elect representatives to the national council. Choose a division to see who to contact.
Division 01
Contact this division
Scotland
Covering the whole of Scotland, from the central belt to the islands, with a strong mobiling and seaside trade alongside a growing artisan gelato scene.
MeetingsFour meetings a year
NEC delegateDavid Equi, Director for Scotland and Honorary Treasurer
ContactHead office will put you in touch with your division secretary on 01332 203 333
Meet the team
NEC delegates and board of directors 2026.
Membership is divided into nine regional divisions. Each division elects a representative to sit on the National Executive Council, which meets roughly four times a year. Your NEC delegate also sits on the board of directors, so the people setting the direction of the alliance are people who run ice cream businesses themselves.
David Otterburn
President of the ICA and Director
Yorkshire
Catherine McNeil
Director of Operations
Head office
David Equi
Director and Honorary Treasurer
Scotland
Stuart Whitby
Director
North West
John Williams
Vice President of the ICA and Director
South West
Luciano Di Meo
Director
Northern
Tony Roach
Director
London and Home Counties
Karl Simcock
Director
Midlands
Sue Richards
Director
WalesMembers are encouraged to keep in regular contact with their NEC delegate and their divisional committee, and to make use of the meetings and social events held in their area. The more you put into your division, the more you get out of it. Contact head office to be put in touch.
How the alliance is governed
The Ice Cream Alliance Ltd is a membership organisation directed by a national council drawn from its own members and nominated through the regional divisions.
A president serves alongside the elected directors and represents the alliance at industry and civic events. Day to day work is carried out by the head office team in Derby, supported by specialist consultants in technical, legislative and food safety matters.
Members receive the annual report, are invited to the annual general meeting and can stand for election through their division.
Ask about governanceTechnical and legislative consultant
Simon Tasker advises members on food law, labelling and technical standards, with more than twenty five years in the food industry and ten with the alliance.
National Executive Council
Elected representatives from the nine regional divisions, meeting around four times a year to set policy and approve the annual accounts.
From the archive
Eighty years, photographed.
Judging tables, annual dinners, road safety campaigns and competition winners, from the alliance's own collection, alongside the trade as it looks today.
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Archive photographs from the Ice Cream Alliance collection, and recent photography from the show, the awards night and the competitions. Dates and the people shown are being confirmed, and captions will be updated as records are checked.
The history of ice cream
Thirteen centuries, and most of it is not what you were told.
AD 618 to 907
Tang dynasty China
The earliest credible evidence of anything resembling ice cream. Buffalo, cow and goat milk was heated and left to ferment, then thickened with flour, flavoured with camphor and chilled before serving. King Tang of Shang kept a household of 2,271 people, ninety four of whom were ice men.
AD 1230 to 1270
Freezing with salt
Adding salt to ice lowers the freezing point far enough to reach below minus fourteen degrees. Who first worked this out is unknown, though it was probably Chinese. It was written about in India in the fourth century, and the Arab medical historian Ibn Abu Usaybi left the first technical account of making ice with salts.
1503 to 1664
The technique reaches Europe
Salt freezing arrived in Italy in 1503, where it was treated as a chemist's party trick rather than anything to do with food. Water ices appeared in Naples, Florence, Paris and Spain in the 1660s, and ices made with sweetened milk followed in Naples in 1664.
1671
Iced cream at Windsor Castle
Ice cream was served in this country at the banquet for the Feast of St George. It was so rare that only the guests seated at King Charles II's own table received a plate of white strawberries and a plate of iced cream. Everyone else watched.
1718 to 1800
Ice houses and closely guarded recipes
Wealthy estates built ice houses, packing lake and river ice under straw and bark to last the summer. Knowing how to make ice cream was a meal ticket for life, which is why no recipe appeared in English until 1718. Custard based ice cream using egg yolks began in France in the middle of the century, and America had to wait until 1800.
1843
The ice cream machine
Introduced in both England and America. A wooden bucket packed with ice and salt surrounded a central metal container turned by a handle, and the churning produced an even, smooth texture. Before it, ice cream was scraped by hand from a pewter pot with a spaddle, a miniature spade on a long handle.
1850s
Ice by the shipload
Ice was imported from Norway, Canada and America, landed at London and other ports and moved by canal barge to ice houses, where it was sold on to ice cream makers. Carlo Gatti's enormous ice wells near Kings Cross survive and are open to the public at the London Canal Museum. The trade was run largely by Italians, and it drew workers from southern Italy and the Ticino to England, many of them living in grim conditions around Holborn.
1888
The cone is English
The cone is usually claimed as an American invention from the St Louis World Fair of 1904. Research says otherwise. Cones themselves go back hundreds of years, and the first record of one being used to serve ice cream is in Mrs Marshall's Cookery Book, published here in 1888.
1900s
Mechanical refrigeration
Electric and gas refrigeration is what made the modern industry possible. Ice cream no longer had to be eaten within hours of being made, and could be stored and transported. It became a mass market product, and most of the flavours announced as new inventions by modern chefs turn out to be somewhere in its history already.
Three stories worth retiring
Marco Polo did not bring ice cream back from China. He did not bring back pasta either, and he probably never went to China.
Catherine de' Medici did not introduce it to France.
King Charles I did not keep a personal ice cream maker on a pension.
They are good stories with no historic evidence behind any of them. Most appear to have been invented by the Victorians.
Adapted for this site from the history maintained by the Ice Cream Alliance, written by Robin Weir, co author of Ices: The Definitive Guide.
Meet the boardEighty years of trade knowledge, one membership.
Standard membership is £280 a year. That includes advice, the handbook, the magazine and a free competition entry.