October 28, 2025
Before it became The Ice Cream Farm, Tom and Margaret Fell ran a regular dairy farm in Tattenhall, Cheshire, back in 1980. Seizing an opportunity to make better use of their excess milk, Cheshire Farm Ice Cream was born in 1986.
Since then, significant time and money have been invested to renovate the buildings, install the ice cream parlour and play areas, and ultimately transform the farm into the award-winning family attraction that it is today.
Set in the picturesque Cheshire countryside between Beeston and Peckforton Castles, The Ice Cream Farm is the tastiest trip you will ever take, enticing hundreds and thousands of visitors every year and winner of Marketing Cheshire’s Visitor Attraction of the Year 2025. From the delights of over 50 award-winning and irresistible Cheshire Farm Ice Creams and sorbets in the World’s Largest Ice Cream Shop, to the fun-filled indoor soft play, there’s something for every family member at The Ice Cream Farm.
In the summer of 2024, The Ice Cream Farm welcomed thousands of people into their parlour and play areas. These thousands of people wanted ice cream and family fun, but had to wait in long queues in front of 6 tills to get it.
Long wait times and frustrated families were not part of the legacy that The Ice Cream Farm had built its brand on or won its awards with. So, prolonging their tech troubles was not an option.
For management, the challenges were not only inconveniencing their customers but also stunting the long-term prosperity and performance of the farm. It was clear that this mismatch of tech across their outlets and estate needed upgrading.
The Ice Cream Farm needed a unified system with central management and clear data visualisation, essential integrations in all eateries, and comprehensive stock management and tracking.
Some of their biggest operational and technical constraints included:
Outdated, fragmented system with no central control; couldn’t support modern workflows like order routing, reporting, or real-time management.
No visibility of true stock costs or movements. Management teams had unclear margins, and the total wastage was difficult to track.
The team had no way to route orders or adjust to demand in real-time, across their 3 parlour stations and with varying staffing levels.
The reporting didn’t provide enough insights into service speed, sales, or stock performance across outlets.
After initial calls and discussions, a full discovery meeting was scheduled to take place in the Tevalis Experience Centre, where key decision-makers could test our tech for themselves. Prior to this, our system technician, Josh Swain, created a demo version of a prospective The Ice Cream Farm and Tevalis EPOS and kiosk set-up. Management was able to not only see the EPOS and kiosks in person but also clearly see what the end product could look like. The team immediately saw the potential and signed this off during their live demo.
The Ice Cream Farm quickly moved from our initial discovery phase to project management: Amy Stewart was assigned as The Ice Cream Farm’s project manager, their ecosystem was designed and customised, and planning began. Solving their operational challenges wasn’t our only goal; we wanted to ensure their tech stack would scale and support their teams long into the future. With all this in mind, their digital strategy was created:
• Dynamic Order Routing: Kiosk orders are intelligently directed to one of three collection points, based on a configurable overflow logic. This ensures service is spread evenly, keeping queues short and guests happy.
• Manager Control: At the push of a button, managers can reroute all orders to a single station during quiet periods or open all stations when things get busy.
• Custom Visual Feedback: Guests are shown a colour-coded collection screen based on the parlour their order is directed to (e.g. blue for Parlour 1). Collection numbers are also automatically deduplicated.
• Collection Screens: Existing displays were reused and driven by mini-PCS to keep costs low while delivering a clean, digital experience (similar to Argos).
• Stock On-The-Go: Tevalis deployed TevStock to bring clarity to margins, recipe costs, and inventory depletion.
• Improved Waste Reduction: The system tracks every ingredient and product from purchase to sale, giving managers better cost control and minimising waste.
"We wanted kiosk orders to be sent to the next available collection point so that my orders can be spread out across 3 different serving areas. With a complete Tevalis tech stack in place, these goals have been achieved."
Instead of your typical till and table setup, customers are greeted by self-service kiosks as soon as they walk into the parlour. They order on the kiosks and receive a receipt stating which collection point they need to go to: either the blue, pink, or yellow counter. This is where the in-house Tevalis development team came in. Our specialist devs created the dynamic order routing. Our team took our standard collection screens and split them into zones, then developed these zones for kiosks with weighted orders.
They also developed a link between the KMS and the kiosks and the collection screen flow. The order is placed; the order number is printed on the customer’s receipt, and then appears on the prep/collect section of the collection screens. A full order with a breakdown of items then appears on the relevant coloured parlour’s KMS.
Tevalis devs created a seamless order journey across multiple channels with a clear colour-coded visualisation for the end users. Whilst this is currently a bespoke development for The Ice Cream Farm’s business model, full end-to-end regression testing is taking place to ensure any gaps are filled and the process meets wider market needs. Watch this space!
"Tevalis really listened to what we needed operationally and delivered something that works with our business, not against it. The flexibility to direct traffic and provide guests with an engaging, consistent journey has transformed our parlour service. Plus, the POS and stock management systems have made our operations much more efficient." - Gemma Hellmers, Business Development Manager, The Ice Cream Farm
We’ve spoken a lot about the challenges, the project, and the solution, but the proof is in the pudding. So, what has a complete technology upgrade achieved for the team at The Ice Cream Farm so far?
3 parlours now operate dynamically with balanced queues and minimal wait time.
Order times are reduced, customer service is improved, and staff training is easier.
Full margin and wastage visibility, and accurate recipe costing across all outlets.
Live screen assignment is now possible on demand.
Fun, colourful and frictionless, from order to scoop.
The Ice Cream Farm has gone from slow service and mismatched systems to one unified tech stack and a seamless customer journey. Plus, their tech is designed to grow and scale as they do, meaning they’re set up for success for the years to come.
Our dedicated account manager, Vicky Chatham, is now supporting The Ice Cream Farm in their day-to-day operations as well as their long-term goals. Vicky is their main point of contact, but their teams will also be able to utilise our 24/7 support teams if needed.
Exploration into an innovative voucher integration is already underway, as The Ice Cream Farm want their visitors to be able to purchase vouchers and scan these on their Tevalis kiosks. Their team is collaborating with our highly knowledgeable partnerships team to find the best integrated solution.
Additionally, Tevalis’ development team has started work on the automatic printing on the KMS. Currently, the ticket is printed automatically when an order is bumped off the KMS. However, The Ice Cream Farm want tickets to print when an order is received, to then be able to assign tickets to different staff.
Together, the Tevalis and The Ice Cream Farm teams have built a unified hospitality system that will improve customer experiences while providing sustained ROI and benefits to the business. The only rocky road in our future is an ice cream cone!
