---
title: "Why Are Ice Creams Getting More Expensive?"
description: "Ice cream is being reinvented with creative shapes and flavors, driving up prices. From cultural creative ice creams at scenic spots to new brands and healthier options, the industry is expanding rapidly, with market size expected to exceed 160 billion yuan by 2021."
author: "王梓旭"
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published: "2021-05-18"
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# Why Are Ice Creams Getting More Expensive?

> Ice cream is being reinvented with creative shapes and flavors, driving up prices. From cultural creative ice creams at scenic spots to new brands and healthier options, the industry is expanding rapidly, with market size expected to exceed 160 billion yuan by 2021.

**"Can price increases bring a better future?"**
Ice cream has been given new twists.
During the May Day holiday, the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan, Deyang, Sichuan, launched a "bronze-flavored" ice cream. This cultural creative ice cream is modeled after two bronze masks unearthed from the sacrificial pits at Sanxingdui, available in "excavated flavor" (chocolate) and "bronze flavor" (matcha).
Over 1,200 ice creams sold out quickly that day. One visitor said, "The ice cream is not expensive at 10 yuan, but I queued for a long time to buy two." She later posted photos on social media, attracting many comments and likes.
On social platforms, ice creams of various shapes are becoming a new focus for tourists to "check in" at scenic spots.
Xiao Ding, a food lover, shared her newly bought ice cream on her Moments. She told New Retail Business Review, "I saw someone post an ice cream from the Shenyang Imperial Palace on social media. The unique shape was interesting, and I was instantly tempted to try it."
Now, famous 5A scenic spots like the Forbidden City, West Lake, Yellow Crane Tower, and Leshan Giant Buddha are all launching cultural creative ice creams with unique shapes based on their features.
Of course, there are other ways for ice cream to go viral.
Recently, the "national tutoring material" *5 Years of High School, 3 Years of Simulation* launched a "53" ice cream that successfully went viral online, attracting widespread attention.
Xiao Qi, a graduate student, said upon seeing the news, "I plan to check nearby convenience stores. If not, I'll buy some online. I've done many exercises from the '53' series, so for me, buying it is mainly about nostalgia."
Not just shapes, but flavors also catch the eye. Local delicacies like Northeast iron pot stew, Changsha stinky tofu, and Shandong scallions have successfully attracted consumers through strong combinations with ice cream.
The continuous upgrading of ice cream has also driven further expansion of the industry. According to data from the China Food Industry Association, China's ice cream market size was only 70.8 billion yuan in 2014, but rapidly grew to nearly 138 billion yuan in 2019, ranking first globally, and is expected to exceed 160 billion yuan in 2021.
Interesting shapes and emerging new flavors have become two magic weapons for ice cream to attract consumers; at the same time, the price of ice cream, which is on the path of consumption upgrading, is visibly getting more expensive.
**-01- The Consumption Upgrade Path of Ice Cream**
China's cold beverage industry started in the 1990s, with the initial consumer group mainly children, and the main function was to relieve heat and quench thirst.
Winter is the off-season for ice cream, but in Northeast China, cold beverage sales remain brisk in winter. This is because although the weather is cold, indoor temperatures are high (due to heating) and the climate is dry, so there is a relatively large demand for cold drinks like ice cream.
According to CCTV Finance data, as early as 1947, Northeasterners ate 0.3 jin (150 grams) of ice cream per person per day, and by 2015, the daily sales of "Dongbei Daban" had reached 20,000 sticks.
Now, with the improvement of people's living standards, cold drinks like ice cream are gradually breaking seasonal restrictions and becoming beloved daily leisure desserts.
Previously, China's ice cream industry was divided into three major camps: foreign brands represented by Wall's, Nestlé, Başkent, and Häagen-Dazs; domestic brands such as Mengniu, Yili, and Guangming; and regional old-brand ice cream enterprises as well as numerous small and medium-sized local private enterprises.
In recent years, the rise of new brands like Zhong Xue Gao, Zhongjie 1946, and Orange Planet has brought new changes to the industry.
**Today's ice cream is more particular in ingredients and continuously improving in taste;** bizarre flavors often flash in the pan, while normal flavor innovations can better capture consumers.
Guangming Youbei fresh milk ice cream, which claims "no water added," recently launched a Longjing tea flavor. The ice cream incorporates Hangzhou Longjing tea powder made with Japanese low-temperature grinding technology, preserving the unique aroma of Longjing to the greatest extent.
Consumer Xiao Han said, "I originally bought it to meet the minimum order, but after eating it, I was amazed. The taste is great and the flavor is pure."
Zhongjie 1946 launched the Chunzhen Ruxiang series, featuring silky fillings; Cornetto and Nai Xue's Tea launched co-branded products—Overbearing Cheese Strawberry flavor ice cream and Treasure Milk Tea flavor ice cream.
This spring, Meiji also launched a batch of new products, including "Passion Fruit Cheesecake Ice Cream."
A Meiji ice cream representative told New Retail Business Review, "Meiji has always focused on Chinese consumers' core needs for product quality and taste in product development, conducting localized product development rather than simply importing. Meiji does not blindly follow short-term market trends but builds brand core competitiveness through differentiated products and continuous pursuit of quality."
In 2019, Meiji began with Chinese tea culture and, based on local female consumers' preference for refreshing fruit tea drinks, developed "Meiji White Peach Oolong Ice Cream." After its launch in 2020, it became the benchmark product for white peach flavor in the market.
"We are trying to increase brand promotion on social media and accelerate the expansion of new retail channels," the representative added.
**In addition to new flavors and co-branded products, some brands have also made new innovations in eating methods.** Recently, Zhong Xue Gao launched a new product "Zhong Xue Gao's Cake," topped with nuts, dried fruits, and fruit ice balls; Orange Planet launched Cheese Jujube Ice Cream, wrapping red dates and almonds in cheese cream. This brings consumers new tastes and experiences of eating ice cream.
Why do ice cream brands launch so many new products every year? In fact, competition in the cold beverage industry is quite fierce. Generally speaking, **a company needs to launch more than 20 new products to the market each year, of which only one or two may survive, while the rest are eliminated by the market.**
How to attract consumers has become a major challenge for ice cream manufacturers. Obviously, major scenic spots have discovered the "wealth code." Cultural creative ice creams based on scenic features not only gain natural traffic from tourists but also attract consumers to share and spread on social media due to their unique shapes, thereby helping scenic spots gain a lot of attention—a win-win situation.
When more scenic spots master this "money-making method" and want to enter the market, they directly heat up the upstream mold manufacturing factories.
**-02- Mold Factories Heated Up**
Judging from the ice creams currently launched by scenic spots, the main focus is on creating unique shapes with scenic features; to make unique shapes, efforts need to be made in molds.
New Retail Business Review learned that ice cream molds are generally divided into stainless steel and silicone types. A person from a stainless steel mold factory said, "Compared with silicone molds, stainless steel molds are simpler in shape, and generally produce traditional shapes."
A person engaged in silicone mold production told New Retail Business Review, "Molds for fine shapes like the Yellow Crane Tower require high precision. Even our factory cannot achieve such detail, and demolding is also difficult. Such custom molds can basically only be completed by some large factories."
On 1688, China's largest domestic wholesale platform, New Retail Business Review contacted a factory that can customize mold production. The factory's relevant person in charge, Xiao Hao, said that this year many scenic spots have asked him about the customization process for ice cream molds.
"Many factories are unwilling to take on custom mold work, mainly because it's troublesome. Many customers don't understand the customization process, and there may be a lot of modifications along the way, which makes the whole process time-consuming."
Xiao Hao's silicone factory has a dedicated department for custom molds, but Xiao Hao told New Retail Business Review that such departments are not standard in mold factories.
The current strong demand keeps Xiao Hao's mold department busy: "Actually, the mold department is already a bit overwhelmed. Not just ice cream molds, but also chocolate or other food molds, we receive custom orders."
Xiao Hao introduced, "If you can provide a compliant 3D model, that's best. Then we can copy the data and directly open hardware molds, and it takes about a week to complete (the mold). If there's no 3D model, providing design drawings and dimensions like length, width, and height, along with a detailed rendering, the mold department can also produce a 3D model. But we're so busy now that I suggest customers make the 3D model themselves for higher efficiency."
In addition to the 3D model, the production quantity needs to be determined. "I directly ask customers how many ice creams they want to produce per day to determine how many molds to make. Prices vary by size and cannot be generalized, but a mold costs at least several thousand yuan," Xiao Hao added.
According to incomplete statistics, there are over 20 types of cultural creative ice creams in Beijing alone, and such ice creams have indeed driven the benefits of upstream mold factories.
In the view of industry insider Xiao He, this round of ice cream shape upgrades will continue for a while. **Once such ice creams become standard at scenic spots, a new round of flavor innovation and shape changes will emerge.**
At the same time, the endless stream of co-branded ice creams has also intensified the demand for molds among ice cream enterprises. It can be seen that with the consumption upgrade of ice cream, the spring for mold factories may last for a long time.
**-03- Can Price Increases Bring a Better Future?**
In addition to shapes and flavors, the consumption upgrade of ice cream inevitably involves increasingly expensive prices.
With the rapid development of the domestic economy and the continuous improvement of per capita consumption power, the era of 0.5 yuan old-fashioned ice pops is gone. Now ice cream is taking the mid-range (unit price 3-10 yuan) and high-end (unit price over 10 yuan) routes.
In fact, cultural creative ice creams at major scenic spots are not cheap either. However, when traveling, people are much more tolerant of prices than usual. Moreover, the price difference between cultural creative ice creams and other brand ice creams sold at scenic spots is not significant, so consumers naturally prefer to buy beautiful and shareable cultural creative ice creams.
The question is, **why are ice creams getting more expensive?**
Although China's total ice cream consumption ranks first in the world, per capita consumption is relatively low. According to previously published data, the current per capita ice cream consumption in China is 2.5 kilograms, significantly lower than developed countries like the United States and Switzerland; Japan's per capita consumption is four times that of China, Sweden's is six times, and the United States' is nine times.
**As a low-frequency consumer product, only by increasing the unit price can ice cream achieve higher profits, which is also the reason why domestic brands are focusing on mid-to-high-end products. At the same time, production costs, channel fees, logistics costs, and marketing investments are all continuously pushing up ice cream prices.**
Zhu Xi, former president of General Mills Greater China (parent company of Häagen-Dazs), once mentioned that Boston Consulting Group found in a 2015 survey that Häagen-Dazs earned 70% of the industry's profits, and half of its sales came from the Chinese market. Why can Häagen-Dazs make money? Because it sells at a high price.
Now consumers are gradually accepting the fact that ice cream has become more expensive. In the future, even if per capita ice cream consumption increases, the unit price of ice cream will not fall, because consumption habits have already been formed.
But industry insider Ming Ming also proposed that **high-end pricing of ice cream should not only focus on profit considerations but should also be based on the quality of the product itself.** Only products with genuine ingredients can justify the money consumers spend.
However, simply selling at a high price cannot meet consumers' increasingly diverse needs, especially in the context of healthy eating, where healthier ice cream may become a new trend.
For example, Wall's has long been positioned in the health track, with its sub-brand "Qingyou" series featuring 0 sucrose and low fat as selling points.
Another brand, "Kemicool," also focuses on this niche track. It launched sugar-free ice cream, using maltitol syrup and erythritol, new low-calorie sugar substitutes, as sweeteners. Additionally, water-soluble dietary fiber (prebiotics) is added to the milk flavor to enhance functionality and health attributes.
Furthermore, according to the "Online Ice Product Consumption Trend Report" jointly released by Tmall's official new product platform Tmall小黑盒 and Alimama, last year, sales of low-fat products in the online ice cream market increased by 131% year-on-year, and sugar-free products increased by 128%.
Undoubtedly, the increasing variety of flavors, shapes, and ingredients naturally widens consumers' tolerance for prices.
In the foreseeable future, **the trend of ice cream becoming dessert-like and consumed all year round will accelerate as a new trend in the ice cream market; at the same time, ice cream will incorporate more cutting-edge food technology, and functional ice creams will become more numerous.** Even, ice cream may gradually become an indispensable daily food in the lives of future Chinese consumers, just like other dairy products.
Now, various social and short-video platforms have become the main battleground for ice cream to go viral. Both big influencers and ordinary people are keen to post various recommendation posts to promote newly launched ice creams.
In Ming Ming's view, in recent years, some products that use concept hype as a gimmick and pursue short-term profits have become increasingly dazzling in terminal freezers, which is actually squeezing the living space of other brand products. This kind of quick success only captures consumers' shallow psychological need to follow trends and try new things, not focusing on building real product competitiveness. "It may bring some short-term gains, but in the long run, it is not good for the industry or consumers."
He told New Retail Business Review, "Bizarre flavors often flash in the pan, while positive innovation can better capture consumers."
However, products without excellent quality will ultimately be just a "flash in the pan." Besides putting effort into marketing, ice cream brands must base themselves on the product itself and integrate more "new ideas" into the product. After all, consumers' pursuit of taste never stops. Who doesn't love co-branded products that are both fun and delicious?
Source: New Retail Business Review (ID: xinlingshou1001) Author: Wang Zixu
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