Often licked and always eaten

Te Kao's Selina Abraham and Bonnie Conrad. Photo / APN

In Auckland's Mission Bay you can pay $10.50 for a giant Movenpick waffle cone topped with creams, nuts and sauce; at Northland's Te Kao Store, $3 will buy a 2 scooper with a lolly on top.

Whatever your taste in ice cream, now's the time.

Beachside ice-cream shops are bracing for their busiest week of the year and the country's most popular parlours will be serving up more than 500 scoops a day between now and January.

The single cone is the most popular choice, according to Tip Top data, and its $2 price tag remains largely unchanged despite the recent GST increase.

But some discerning Kiwis are voting with their wallets and gourmet parlours at holiday hotspots are reporting booming business.

Tairua's Frolic In The Sun will satisfy about 7000 sweet teeth over the next fortnight as the town's population swells from 1269 to more than 10,000.

The house specialty is a giant home-made waffle cone filled with real-fruit gelato - not bad for $6.50. Frolic owner Lynda Richards said: "If you had one for lunch, that would be it, you wouldn't be hungry."

Also available on the Coromandel Peninsula is the legendary Kuaotunu Killer, a five scoop ice cream cone from the Kuaotunu Store near Whangapoua. Costs are up this year, from $5 to $6.50.

By comparison, you don't get so much for your money with the $5 single scoop from Matakana's Blue Ice Cream Cafe - but their ice cream and sorbet is organic, preservative-free and locally made.

One of the best value cones in the land is to be had in Northland where, at the Te Kao Store, $3 will buy a 2 scooper with a lolly on top. Shop keeper Bonnie Conrad sells about 55,000 scoops each year, with more than eight tour buses turning up every day over the summer months.

But the job comes with a set of occupational hazards - the repetitive scooping has caused problems with the nerves in her hands.

Strangely, the country's busiest shop is nowhere near the beach. It's Ollie's, situated on Auckland's Royal Oak roundabout, which get through nearly 200,000 scoops a year.

TOP SCOOPS

BEST VALUE: Te Kao Store, Northland

MOST INDULGENT: Frolic in the Sun, Tairua

BIGGEST: Kuaotuna Store