Ice Cream Distribution in Nepal: A Season Calendar, Freezer Register and Melt Trail

Ice cream breaks most of the rules of ordinary FMCG distribution. It cannot sit in a normal godown, a delay of a few hours can ruin a delivery, and the most valuable things in the business are often not the product but the freezers standing in shops. The year is lopsided: a few hot months carry the business, and a bad week in peak season cannot be made up in winter. This guide is built around three things that are unique to ice cream in Nepal: the season calendar, the freezer register and the melt trail. It shows how to keep sales and stock records that fit the cold chain rather than fight it.

The ice cream year in Nepal

Demand follows temperature, and temperature in Nepal follows both the month and the altitude. Terai towns heat up earlier and stay hot longer than hill towns, so treat the calendar below as a starting point and adjust it by region using your own order history.

Period (approx.)	What demand does	What to do
Magh to Falgun	Low, slowly waking up in the Terai	Service and repair freezers, clean the outlet list, settle old balances
Chaitra	First hot spells, demand jumps suddenly	Fill depots, add van runs, place new freezers before the rush
Baisakh to Jestha	Peak in most regions	Daily routes, tight loading, daily cash and returns check
Asar to Bhadra	Still strong, but monsoon disrupts roads and power	Plan around road closures, watch power-cut melt in shops
Ashwin to Kartik	Festival lift for family packs and events	Push bulk packs to sweet shops, restaurants and party orders
Mangsir to Poush	Lowest in hills, modest in Terai	Cut routes to key outlets, reduce depot stock, review the year

The months above are approximate and are not a forecast. Your own recorded orders for each depot, by month, are a far better guide. After one full year in gamitrack you can compare each month with the same month last year by route and by outlet.

Before the first hot spell

The most expensive mistake is being late. Use Falgun to get ready:

• Confirm every freezer on the register is working and in its shop.
• Set low-stock levels per SKU at each depot, so transfers from the plant cold store start on time.
• Plan extra van runs and assign drivers before demand arrives.
• Set monthly targets with a daily pace for the peak months, so a slow start is visible within days, not weeks.

The freezer register

A shop freezer is a capital asset you or the company paid for. It has a location, a condition and an agreement, and it is easy to lose track of. A closed shop, a freezer moved to a relative's store, or a freezer quietly filled with a competitor's product all cost money.

In gamitrack, every outlet is a party with its location and type. Keep freezer details in the party's internal notes: freezer type, date placed, agreement terms, who services it. Internal notes are never shown to dealers.

Freezer check at every visit

• Freezer present and in the same shop (the geofence check confirms the officer is at the outlet).
• Working, no heavy frost, no soft or misshapen packs.
• Our stock only, or shared with another brand?
• Display visible to customers, not hidden behind other goods.
• Photo taken of the open freezer.

Visits are recorded with a geofence check and a photo, and a visit outside the geofence, too short or without a photo is flagged for the manager. That makes the photo trail usable evidence. Once a month, go through the outlets with freezers and look for those with no recent visit or no recent orders; those are the freezers at risk.

The melt trail

Ice cream is quick to spoil and shops are quick to reject doubtful stock. Without a record, every return is an argument and every loss is a mystery. With one, you can see where the losses come from: a particular route, a particular van, a shop with frequent power cuts.

Where melt happens	What to record	What it tells you
In the van	Returned stock at day end, with reason	Loading habits, route length
At delivery	Rejection at the door, with photo	Van timing, door-open time
In the shop	Damaged return after a power cut, with photo	Outlets that need a smaller stock or a different freezer
In the depot	Adjustment with reason	Storage or handling issues

Record each one as a return with a reason. Returns go through review, and once approved come back into a branch with a credit note. Stock movements are append-only, so the history cannot be quietly edited later.

Peak season van days

In Baisakh and Jestha a van may cover many small drops a day, with cash changing hands at most of them. This is where shortages and disputes are born.

A daily van routine

1. Before loading, confirm the van is cooled and the orders for the route are booked.
2. Load in route order, last stop first, and keep door-open time short.
3. At each drop, mark delivery with GPS, photo and receiver name.
4. Collect payment after delivery where due, and record the mode: cash, eSewa, Khalti, Fonepay, bank or cheque.
5. At day end, unload unsold stock straight into the cold store and record it.
6. Reconcile deliveries, returns and cash before the driver leaves.

The driver tab in the app shows the amount due, location and directions for each delivery. Because every payment is recorded against the delivery and allocated to the oldest invoice first, the evening reconciliation is a comparison of a list with the cash bag rather than a reconstruction from memory. A delivery marked far from the customer's location is flagged.

Stock across plant, depots and dealers

Model the plant cold store and each depot as separate branches. Set up flavours, sizes and family packs as SKUs and use batches with expiry dates for production lots, so the oldest stock goes out first. Transfers between branches are recorded as movements, and low-stock views tell each depot when to ask for more.

Where dealers carry stock, use via-dealers mode: officers book shop orders that dealers fulfil, and dealers see them in the dealer app with reminders. A dealer can only hold as much as their own freezers can keep cold, so the monthly dealer stock report matters: it compares expected closing stock with the dealer's count and shows a variance that often means stock has been lost or sold unrecorded.

Credit in a cash-heavy trade

Small outlets mostly pay on delivery or within a few days. Restaurants, hotels and dealers get longer terms. Fix due days from the dispatch date, review aging every week for the larger accounts, and use weekly collection plans to give each officer a list. Settle old balances in the quiet months, before the next season ties up working capital again.

Questions from ice cream distributors

Should I keep visiting shops in winter? Yes, but less often and with a different purpose: freezer condition, balance settlement and early orders for the next season.

How do I decide where to place a new freezer? Look at order history for the area and the shop's past visits. A shop that already orders regularly without a freezer is a better bet than a new one.

Can field staff claim fuel? Yes. Field expense claims are submitted with receipt photos and approved by a manager.

Related reading

For other perishable trades, see fruit juice distribution and planning routes for the monsoon. For cash on the van, read van sales cash reconciliation. Industry pages: Dairy and Beverages.

Next step

Before the next hot spell, load one depot's outlets and freezers into gamitrack and run its routes for a month. Plans and the free trial are on the pricing page, or contact us.