{"id":1166,"date":"2021-04-14T06:00:05","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T06:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uberlin.co.uk\/eva-langhorst-archives-uberlin\/"},"modified":"2021-04-14T06:00:05","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T06:00:05","slug":"eva-langhorst-archives-uberlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uberlin.co.uk\/eva-langhorst-archives-uberlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Eva Langhorst Archives – \u00fcberlin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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July 23, 2015<\/abbr><\/h5>\n
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Portrait: Eva Langhorst, Mr. Whippy’s Frozen Yogurt Truck<\/a><\/h3>\n

by Guest Blogger<\/span><\/h4>\n
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\"Eva<\/p>\n

by Emma Robertson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve probably seen Eva Langhorst driving around Berlin. After all, her pink and white sixties-style Mr. Whippy ice cream truck<\/a> is hard to miss. \u201cFreshly made just for you,\u201d it declares in bright blue lettering, and it\u2019s true. Every morning, Eva gathers fresh ingredients – milk, yogurt, fruit – from the local markets in Berlin, and spends the day driving around in her truck, a realisation of a childhood fantasy and an\u00a0enduring\u00a0love of\u00a0ice cream. Her dedication to her craft is made all the more impressive, I find out, because right now Eva is pregnant with a baby girl. When I ask if she\u2019s going to continue running the truck when the baby comes, she smiles. \u201cMy parents want to build a custom baby seat for the truck,\u201d she laughs, \u201cSo, I can take her with me! We\u2019ll be fine!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Eva started her business in 2012, and since then, she and her Mr. Whippy truck have travelled all over Germany, selling homemade frozen yogurt. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of risk that you take with a job like this. It\u2019s hard,\u201d she continues, \u201cAnd when you have a baby, it\u2019s harder. But I don\u2019t really see it as a job. It\u2019s just fun.\u201d It\u2019s no wonder, then, that the end result is so sweet.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"iPhone<\/p>\n

In his book The Feast of Love<\/em>, Charles Baxter wrote, \u201cForget art. Put your trust in ice cream.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Laughs) I definitely agree. I eat ice cream every day! No lie, I can\u2019t get enough of it! I spend all winter actually looking forward to putting on the ice cream machine again! Even if I work all day, my boyfriend and I come home very late at night, we park the car, and we walk to the kiosk to buy an ice cream! (Laughs)<\/p>\n

Have you always been this passionate about ice cream?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was actually quite into ice cream even from childhood! (Laughs) I\u2019ve loved frozen yogurt since I was a girl – that\u2019s where it all started. My mom told me that when I was growing up, I wanted to become an ice cream seller! So there must be something about it! (Laughs)<\/p>\n

Do you think that kind of nostalgia plays a certain role in making Mr. Whippy so popular here in Berlin?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I think it definitely plays a role! For me, I\u2019ve searched for it for frozen yogurt for years because when I was ten, I tasted it for the first time and I just loved it. With Mr. Whippy, it\u2019s not only the product, it\u2019s also the van that attracts people. Everyone recognises it, it\u2019s like a giant toy! Everyone remembers these kinds of trucks from their childhood, so of course it generates those lovely nostalgic feelings in some way.<\/p>\n

\"Mr<\/p>\n

Can food, ice cream especially, ever really be as good as the memories or feelings associated with it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our case\u2026 Yes! My mother makes the best elderflower sauce. It\u2019s one of the syrups that we stock in the truck. Even though, like you said, the associations are a strong influence\u2026 I think it really is that good!<\/p>\n

Has Mr. Whippy always been a part of your life? Do you have a special connection to the brand?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I actually didn\u2019t know the Mr Whippy trucks because we didn\u2019t have them in Germany. I first wanted to start selling frozen yogurt and only later came the idea of the truck. In 2012, we found the Mr. Whippy truck and imported it from England. It was already a Mr Whippy truck, but I thought, \u201cI can\u2019t change the name!\u201d (Laughs) There was no copyright in Germany, so I just kept it. Then I started to restore the car basically from the inside\u2026<\/p>\n

I read that your father helped you re-design the truck.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right! My dad is really good with cars, luckily. He used to be a racecar driver when he was young! So he\u2019s my helping hand. Without him, it would have been difficult, with all these technical tasks and mechanical problems. It took us four months to restore the truck, and get it decorated. On the side, I work as an illustrator, so that came in handy when we were designing the inside and the signs. I like to work really creatively\u2026 I kept all these elements from the sixties and added my own twist, so that was a great project!<\/p>\n

\"Mr<\/p>\n

It sounds like a family affair. You said your mom makes the sauces, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes! She\u2019s really sweet. She lives in the countryside and she has this whole garden with all the berries and the elderflowers. So, she does the bases for the sauces for me, and then we have fresh fruits by season as well. I wouldn\u2019t know what to do without my family\u2019s help. My mom helps a lot. And she even comes sometimes to help me with the selling! My dad and I have gone on some trips together with Mr. Whippy. (Laughs) He drives the truck! My cousin helps me as well – she lives in Berlin, too.<\/p>\n

Is that homegrown aspect of Mr. Whippy very important to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Very important. It makes it so that you can put a lot of love in it. Everyone helps. That\u2019s another reason why I want to keep the company small. It\u2019s important that I\u2019m always present with the truck, I want to keep it close to my heart. We also try to keep the business local\u2026 Like I said, we use seasonal fruits from local vendors, and everything is fresh.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what makes Mr. Whippy so different to the kind of ice cream trucks I know from my childhood in Canada, which seemed like a franchise. Everything was mass-produced.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, actually that happened also a little bit with the Mr. Whippy company itself. It goes back to what we were talking about before with the childhood memories. Sometimes I actually have problems with the name for people who know it from England and associate it with that kind of food franchise. But different people, different connections.<\/p>\n

What has the reaction been like from Berliners when they see you driving around?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s the English crowd that really knows Mr. Whippy! We used to have ice cream trucks driving around here in Germany when I was a kid, but more in the countryside, so I don\u2019t think Berliners know it that much. They didn\u2019t have that this ice cream culture of the van driving around. For the most part, it\u2019s not the brand that\u2019s the attraction, it\u2019s the look of the big pink truck!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about the product, which is so delicious. What can you tell me about the recipe, or is that top secret?<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Laughs) The secret is actually to keep it simple. It\u2019s important to find a good quality for the base. There are some bases that are just mixes that you stir in with water, and that\u2019s\u2026 Well, not so nice. I use fresh yogurt and milk and a bit of lemon, blended with a sugar mix made by another Berliner. He has a frozen yogurt shop and he works as a food developer, studying some kind of gastronomic chemistry. We buy the milk from a local farm as well. So the produce is all from Berlin, and we all work together. We just try to keep it simple and use fresh products.<\/p>\n

\"Close<\/p>\n

As for keeping it simple, I imagine it\u2019s been quite a task getting a food truck business up and running in Berlin, the capital of making things complicated.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Laughs) There\u2019s a lot of rules in Berlin! There are infinite rules about where you can park and sell. When I first started, I thought I could park anywhere in the street, but it turns out it\u2019s very difficult. Of course, the city makes it kind of impossible to park and stay and sell just anywhere. You are bound to the festival places and food markets. It\u2019s also an electricity problem – the machine needs electricity to run, so it\u2019s hard to be self-sufficient. There\u2019s also the problem that because you\u2019re on the road, things can break down! Luckily this has only happened once, but I got towed to the Bread and Butter trade show<\/a> because I just had to make it there! (Laughs) It\u2019s the same with any job though – you can never foresee what\u2019s going to happen.<\/p>\n

Running a truck does have its perks, though, I\u2019m sure.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course. This gives me freedom! I can park the car when I don\u2019t want to work anymore. And it waits! I can drive around if I\u2019m not selling well. We\u2019ve driven to Hamburg, Munich, all over Germany on these little adventures in the truck. I don\u2019t think we\u2019d have the same experience if we were rooted in Berlin with a shop or a cafe.<\/p>\n

Food trucks are becoming more and more of a trend these days, especially here in Berlin.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah! Definitely. It\u2019s getting really bad for that! When we started, I was one of the first trucks driving around. I got lucky – I was there before the big competition really started. Currently, there\u2019s not really any other frozen yogurt trucks though, so there\u2019s no direct competition for me. There are a lot of people who do ice cream, but the ones that I\u2019ve met, I\u2019ve become friends with. We give each other jobs. It\u2019s a very friendly environment.<\/p>\n

I was going to ask\u2026 Are you guys out there racing around in your trucks to beat the other vendors to the best spots?<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Laughs) Fortunately, this doesn\u2019t happen, no. We support each other! Sometimes we even park next to each other! You have to live with it.<\/p>\n

Do you ever worry that the food truck trend is going to go out of style?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not so scared! I know that actually a lot of frozen yogurt and ice cream shops around Berlin already had to close, and maybe that\u2019s a little bit of a pressure but I don\u2019t think it will ever really go out of style. I think if you have the right product, it doesn\u2019t really matter so much what\u2019s trendy. You create the whole environment. And people will always eat ice cream!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s my number one weakness.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I read an article that Germans are the number two highest consumers of ice cream in the world. So why should I worry?! (Laughs) You can have ten burgers but there\u2019s always room for ice cream.<\/p>\n

\"Eva<\/p>\n

\"Frozen<\/p>\n

\"Frozen<\/p>\n

\"Frozen<\/p>\n

\"Frozen<\/p>\n

\"Wr<\/p>\n

\"Eva<\/p>\n

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