Having myself worked on innovation and marketing in ice cream for so long, it came as quite a shock to discover in the broadcast of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral that she was involved in the development of Mr Whippy soft ice cream.
Of course, one knew that before she was a politician she
had been a research chemist at Oxford University. After Oxford she had joined
the R&D department of J Lyons ice cream (now part of the Nestlé food giant).
Soft ice cream itself had originated in the USA before the
Second World War. What she and the team at Lyons did in the late 1950s was to
discover how to pump extra air into ice cream. Lyons Maid launched Mr Softee
and Wall’s (Unilever) responded with Mr Whippy, which rapidly became market
leader in Britain.
It transformed the market – in take-home ice cream as well
as in van sales.
Not so many political leaders can have had a grounding in
practical innovation.
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