China Ice Cream Market Report 2026

Ice cream is moving away from sweet indulgence towards guilt-free enjoyment. Brands need to strike the right balance in their health strategy, making targeted additions and reductions where they matter most. They also need to capture specific trade-up opportunities, using new flavours to drive innovation while allowing original flavours to maintain the category's core consumer base. Understanding how consumers are rebalancing indulgence and restraint will be key to unlocking the category's next phase of growth.

Evelyn Shen, Associate Research Analyst, China

Market Definitions

This Report explores the development of the Chinese packaged ice cream retail market, consumers’ ice cream purchasing and consumption behaviours as well as the product features they find appealing, providing a reference for companies engaged in marketing and product development.

In this Report, ice cream refers to frozen desserts as defined in the national food safety standard GB 2759 – 2015 Frozen Drinks and Production Materials, including ice cream, ice lollies, sorbets, popsicles and sweetened ice products, but does not include edible ice. Market size is calculated based on sales across various retail channels, including direct sales, and covers packaged forms of all the frozen dessert types mentioned above. It excludes items such as unpackaged ice cream cones or scooped ice cream from tubs sold in parlours, as well as frozen cakes and other desserts.

Mintel categorises consumers into four groups based on consumption frequency:

• Those who eat ice cream once a week or more are high-frequency consumers;
• Those who eat ice cream 1-3 times a month are medium-frequency consumers;
• Those who eat ice cream once every 2-3 months are low-frequency consumers;
• Those who eat ice cream once every six months or less are occasional consumers.