In 2021, the EU produced over 3.1 billion litres of ice cream, a 4% increase from the previous year according to data released by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical service.
In the same year, EU Member States exported 254 million kilograms of ice cream to non-EU countries, worth a total of 850 million euro, while imports of ice cream from non-EU countries amounted to 71 million kilograms, worth a total of €192 million.
While the quantity of extra-EU ice cream imports decreased by 11% compared with 2020, exports increased by 9%.
Eurostat does not include data from Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta, as they are exempt from providing data on production due to their economic sizes.
Among the EU Member States, Germany was the main producer of ice cream in 2021, producing 614 million litres of ice cream. Germany was followed by France (459 million litres; based on production on own account) and Italy (381 million litres).
France does not provide data on production under sub-contracted operations due to confidentiality, but ranks as the second largest producer of ice cream given the production on own account.
As well as being the largest ice cream producer in 2021, Germany produced on average the cheapest ice cream at 1.4 euro per litre. France reported an average price of 2.0 euro per litre of ice cream, while Italy reported an average price of 2.1 euro per litre of ice cream.
France exported 57 million kilograms of ice cream in 2021, accounting for 22% of extra-EU ice cream exports. This made it the largest ice cream exporter out of all EU Member States, ahead of the Netherlands (which exported 38 million kilograms of ice cream, or 15% of total extra-EU exports), Italy (33 million kilograms, or 13%), Germany (24 million kilograms, or 10%) and Belgium (23 million kilograms, or 9%).
Source: Cyprus News Agency