The World Bank took the trouble to analyze which country exported how much ice cream in 2023. Italy, regarded as the motherland of ice cream, was nowhere near the top of the list. The same applies to the USA with its huge sales areas for ice cream in supermarkets there. Both countries prefer to consume themselves rather than export. China, the actual cradle of ice cream, also plays a subordinate role, exporting just 21,000 tons (source: World Bank)

Germany far ahead in industrial production

Even though the invention of ice cream took place in ancient China, we (almost) always associate Italy with “gelato”, including the misconception that Italian ice cream conquered the rest of the world. Even though Motta is an Italian company and Langnese sells its products under the brand name “Algida”, “gelato artigianale”, the artisan gelato, still dominates on the boot. Italians swear by the craftsmanship of “their” ice cream parlor. The clusters of people that form in front of them in the late afternoon and into the night from spring onwards are proof of this. In contrast, the share of ice cream parlors in Germany, with a market share of 14.75% in production in 2022, seems negligible compared to the 82.5% share of industrially produced ice cream (source: Statista).

Even though Germany is the world’s leading exporter of ice cream, other figures from Italy are actually even more impressive. Of the 65,000 ice cream parlors across Europe with around 300,000 employees in 2024, Italy accounted for 39,000 sales outlets offering artisan ice cream, 60 percent of the European total. In addition to ice cream parlors, this also included bars and patisseries. Germany followed in second place with a modest 9,000 outlets, 3,300 of which were genuine ice cream parlors (source: gelato-day.it)

Germany has the lowest production costs for ice cream

One of the reasons for high export quotas is usually the price of a product abroad. This is based, among other things, on the production costs in Germany. And this is where Germany scores highly. In 2023, German manufacturers produced a liter of ice cream for an average of 1.80 euros. In France, production costs amounted to 2.20 and in Italy to 2.60. Ice cream production was most expensive in Austria. Production costs there were 7.70 euros per liter, followed by Hungary at 4.80 euros. In terms of the lowest production costs, Lithuania was in second place with 1.90 euros per liter, followed by the Czech Republic with two euros (formatresearch).

In its statistics, the World Bank also answered the question of which country had the lowest ice cream exports in 2023. The Sultan of Brunei earns his fortune with natural gas and various natural resources, not with the 51 kilograms of ice cream that the country exported. This was just a third of what the penultimate country, Gabon in Central Africa, sold abroad.