For Steve Hawkins, this is another victory in his five short years serving frosty treats, after mingling with A-list celebrities at his Canary Wharf pitch.
00:00We all might love a 99 flake, but Raynham's Steve Hawkins might be on the edge of having the number one ice cream van in the country.
00:09And you might think this is impressive enough, but the Medway favourite of Bossy's ice creams is also relatively new to the scene.
00:16Steve, or Bossy to go by his childhood nickname, is down to just one of three finalists in the Ice Cream Alliances Mobiler of the Year Awards.
00:26So in lockdown, I'm indoors with my wife and children, and we heard an ice cream man come down our road.
00:33And lo and behold, I know the boy, whose family, Italian family, that have done it for generations.
00:40And on his second visit, a couple of weeks later, he said to me, look, I've never, I don't know what's making me feel to say this, and I've never said it to anyone, would you like to come and learn the industry?
00:50And I know, in the ice cream industry, it's normally a family-run business, it's hard to sort of get into and break through.
00:57So I jumped to the opportunity, because then doors, you know, don't open and close very often in life.
01:01With his five short years as an ice cream man, filled with meeting A-list celebrities, and breaking records by being the first to hold an ice cream licence in Canary Wharf,
01:11this would be the cherry on top of an already mega sundae.
01:16So yeah, very excited. This year, happens to be the most entrants I've gone in, and I've got an email and a phone call about two weeks ago to say,
01:28congratulations, you're down to the final three. Which is an honour just to get to the final three, because for some, you know,
01:35I've only been doing ice cream, let's say, five seasons. Yeah, I'm over the moon. I can't, you know, believe how excited I am about it.
01:43And while the winner might not be announced until March, Steve is already looking further into the future to see what it has in store for bosses.
01:51So, the next step is, we've got opportunity to have pitches in Malta, and further afield, who knows, we could be in Dubai.
02:03That's the, that's the dream. We're going to keep going, basically. We're not going to just hold back and stay.
02:08Listen, we love Medway, it's where we started. We'll always be part of Medway, because, listen, I love the street work,
02:14because they're the, you know, they're the people that sort of support you. So, that's number one.
02:20But, yeah, we're going to try, and if we can build and build, then we will.
02:24With the intense interviews as part of the competition decider looming, and another pioneering electric ice cream truck on the way,
02:32let's just hope Steve hasn't bitten off more than he can chew.
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