Greeks are ice cream fanatics and their passion for the cold, sweet treat dates back to a simpler time when the ice cream vendors traveled the streets by foot or tricycle. Let’s take a look back at this nostalgic time and a profession that has disappeared when it was replaced by modern technology.
Evga started the craze of ice cream on a stick in Greece in 1936, when Greeks enjoyed their first ice cream on a stick.
Imagine how the streets flooded with ice cream lovers as in 1936 there were no refrigerators for ice-cream trucks to cruise the streets passing out ice cream.
Back then, street vendors had wheelbarrows filled with ice. The “pagotatzi” was the vendor wearing a white apron and cap who traveled through the neighborhoods with the famous three-wheeled cart.
By 1954’s, the Greek ice cream company Kri Kri saw its first sales when the company decided to undertake the simultaneous production and distribution of ice cream and confectionery in the city of Serres.
At first, ice cream distributions made by vendors used a special chests made of wood and metal and weighed about 30 pounds each, while the capacity was about 40 pieces of ice cream per chest.
Generations upon generations of Greeks remember how children and adults would flock to the ice cream vendors as they showed up outside of primary schools, churches on Sundays, bazaars, football matches and even festivals such as weddings.
However, by the 1960s, Kri Kri made the move of putting its first modern-day ice cream freezer in the Serres market, and others soon followed. This forever changed the profession of ice cream sellers. As modern technology continued to advance, ice cream has ended up in supermarkets freezer section or loaded into musical ice cream trucks that cruise the streets.
