History of Parisella's Ice Cream

Along with many other Italians looking to better their prospects,16 year old Domenico Parisella emigrated to Great Britain from Italy in 1912.

He settled in Greenock, Scotland and started to work for the Di Murro family who, as part of their catering business , manufactured ice cream.

In 1936, Domenico, Carolina and their 3 children Leo, Irena and Joe moved from Wooller, Northumberland to Berwick upon Tweed where they ran a small shop selling fish and chips in the winter and homemade ice cream in the summer.

In 1943, the family moved to North Wales where Domenico was given employment by the Forte family making ice cream in their Llandudno shop.

After six years, he decided to set up his own business and found premises in Lancaster Square, Conwy where he opened the Continental Ice Cream Parlour. In 1953 the first motorised tricycle was purchased and the Parisella ice cream van business was born.
The business grew throughout the fifties and sixties as the reputation of Domenico’s traditional ice cream spread through North Wales.

Following the closure of the Hi Hat ice cream factory in Llandudno in the early seventies, Parisellas were able to offer employment to several of the staff including Mr Frank Carnall, the factory manager. This coincided with the installation of a new plant capable of producing 130 gallons of ice cream every hour.

By now the firm was able to wholesale as far as the Midlands and secured a contract to supply Freezrite, a local firm enjoying a good deal of success. The mid –seventies saw a boom in ice cream sales culminating in the long hot summer of 1976. Sadly, however, the by now retired Domenico died in May of that year.

For the ice cream industry as a whole more difficult times were approaching. A series of indifferent summers and the recession of the eighties saw the wholesale ice cream market slide into depression. As a result, production was scaled back and eventually the old plant was decommissioned in 2003.

However, the desire to resurrect the Parisella name was strong. The decision was made to open an Artisan ice cream factory on the site of the old plant. Under the management of Tony Parisella and with support from the Welsh Assembly Government the new factory commenced production in June 2006.