FLORENCE — In an effort to sway the franchise Friendly’s to begin offering vegan ice cream options, activists with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) parked a refrigerated truck outside the business Thursday afternoon, handing out free vegan ice cream to those walking by.

As residents passed the “iScream” vegan truck, they were offered sweet non-dairy ice creams and literature on the vegan diet and cooking. The protest truck’s stop follows an East Coast tour and aims to spread awareness of the alleged mistreatment of cows and calves in the dairy business.

“Friendly’s isn’t living up to its name for mother cows, their stolen calves, or the rapidly growing number of diners asking for vegan options,” PETA President Tracy Reiman wrote in a statement. “PETA’s mobile parlor will be rolling up and down the East Coast this summer to dish up thousands of the dairy-free treats that Friendly’s customers are missing out on.”

While most of those who lined up to enjoy the frozen treats outside the 54-56 Main St. location followed either a vegan, or dairy-restricted, diet, others, such as Stacia Bowie, who works at a nearby gas station, said she simply stopped by for a free ice cream.

Others, such as Missy LaCharite, said she walked over to the truck from the nearby Wild Chestnut Cafe and wished there were generally more vegan options when she went out for ice cream with friends.

“More than I would like to, [I feel left out] and it’s tough sometimes. There’s only maybe one option, if there’s at least that,” LaCharite said. “I think this is a great idea — they’re offering different options for people to try.”

Another passerby, Po Crest, went into Friendly’s to ask the business to include more vegan options. She said a Friendly’s employee told her that varying refrigeration requirements between regular and vegan ice cream made serving the product especially difficult.

“It didn’t go very well when I went and asked them if they would consider doing one flavor that was vegan,” Crest said. “The guy said to me, ‘We can’t do that. We’ve had requests for 20 years, but we can’t do it because his excuse was that oat milk can’t be kept at the same temperature as dairy milk.'”

While PETA’s ice cream truck seemed to be appreciated by most who walked by, others, such as Arthur Rosenfield, who identified himself as a member of the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce, confronted the truck’s server, demanding that she either leave or display a food vending license.

At one point during the interaction, Rosenfield attempted to enter the truck through its back hatch.

“Food requires a license, especially if it’s some kind of manufactured food, because you don’t know what the ingredients are,” Rosenfield said. “The public can have no confidence in what the ingredients are here. You go to a place like Friendly’s because you know that for 60 years, they’ve had a very good health standard. You don’t know anything about this truck.”

PETA Campaigns Tour Specialist Marnie Chambless, in an interview on Friday, said the summer truck tour aims to help inform the community of common dairy farming practices that PETA believes are cruel.

“From what we’ve heard from Friendly’s customers, as well as their franchise owners, that’s the number one request — they would like to see an option added to their menu because most people are compassionate and would never want to see any harm come to an animal,” Chambless said. “A lot of people have never heard that the dairy industry causes cows to be separated from their moms and that they have to spend their entire lives pregnant and hooked up to painful milking machines.”

Responding to concerns that the truck was operating without proper licensure, Chambless said that PETA has toured the country in the truck for multiple summers in a row and always receives local authorization from local boards of health prior to each protest.

“We have all the health department permits that we require to set up and to make sure that our demonstrations go on without a hitch because we want to make sure that our message is heard by as many people as possible,” she said. “Nobody needs to eat meat, dairy, or eggs to be healthy and we can avoid this suffering with simple choices every single day.”

Alyssa Stevens, a spokesperson for Friendly’s, could not be reached for comment on Friday.