China's ice cream industry sees robust development

China's ice cream industry has witnessed a rapid development rarely seen for years in this searing summer.

Statistics show that there are 28,800 ice cream-related enterprises in China in 2023. According to the analysis of many market research institutions, the annual production and sales of China's ice cream market has exceeded 160 billion yuan ($22.25 billion), and the revenue of enterprises of the industry has increased.

Photo taken on April 14, 2022 shows a tourist displaying her choice of ice cream at Gulandam ice cream shop in Yining city, Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Wang Zhihua)

Zhang Xiaohong, an executive of an expo on ice cream and processing techniques, said that leading enterprises have seen robust development. From 2020 to 2022, the revenue of the ice cream business of China's dairy giant Yili Group grew from 6.16 billion yuan to 9.57 billion yuan, and that of Inner Mongolia Mengniu Dairy (Group) Co., Ltd. increased from 2.7 billion yuan to over 5.65 billion yuan. Both enterprises experienced a year-on-year growth of more than 33 percent in 2022.

Domestic and international brands have joined the fierce competition of China's ice cream market, rolling out products with various flavors and ingredients to cater to the different tastes of consumers, such as the ones with less fat, sugar, or higher protein. They also explored both online and offline sales channels and launched online promotional activities. With the help of improved cold-chain logistics and transportation networks, online sales of ice cream have surged.

Zhongxuegao, a Chinese ice cream brand also known as Chicecream, is considered high-end Chinese-style ice cream. It launched a series of popsicles developed by artificial intelligence this year. Priced at 3.5 yuan, the new product targets the middle and low-end market, and is only sold in offline channels. Since it entered the market in April, nearly 20 million such popsicles have been sold.

An ice cream store in north China's Tianjin Municipality, for instance, sells dozens of ice cream products, with 80 percent of the products priced below 6 yuan, and offers a discount of from 10 percent to 20 percent to customers who buy at least 10. The manager said that the promotion helped increase the sales of products priced at around 10 yuan.

"The trend of consumption has shifted from simply purchasing products to gaining a better shopping experience and satisfaction," said Zhao Guorui, a food expert. Zhao added that today's consumers care more about costs, ingredients, and the nutritional value of the products.

Last year, the consumers' associations of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province, together with the Beijing Sunshine Consumption Big Data Research Institute, tested the level of protein, fat, energy, carbohydrates, and the total number of bacterial colonies of 36 ice cream products in the market. And the results showed that the nutritional and microbial indicators of all of the samples met the standard requirements.

"That's really good news, and the data are reliable," said a net user in north China's Liaoning Province. Through the test, consumers felt that they were respected, and gained relevant knowledge.