Ice Cream Olympics

The ice cream market in Western Europe is once again on the up, with Germany, Italy and the UK as the most significant markets. Combined, they account for over half of the total western European volume.

This brought us to thinking about global ice cream consumption and whereabouts various countries would rank based on how many scoops they tuck in to per capita per year. From the ranking system we expanded further to create "The Ice Cream Olympics" and deliberate who would rank as the Olympic Gold Medalist for ice cream consumption?

Clearly we realised this was the question on everyone's lips, therefore we have drawn up and provided a list of the top 10 cone-munching countries in the world. However, it is worth remembering that the consumption trends are fluid and the order may chop and change quicker than you can shout "cookie dough" so please do not take our table as gospel. It’s more of a light-hearted effort! 

1. Olympic Gold medalist: New Zealand

Our Olympic champion and winner of the chopped nut laurels is New Zealand. The Kiwis love ice cream more than anyone else in the world and their ice cream market is highly competitive! It is estimated that each person in New Zealand puts away a mighty 26 litres of ice cream per year! We wonder what percentage of that is "hokey pokey".

2. Olympic Silver Medalist: USA

In a close second place comes the United States of America. Hardly surprising when it is estimated that around 98% of American households purchases ice cream! Our Yankee buddies indulge themselves with 24 litres of ice cream per person per year! This could explain why a lot of Americans' two best friends are called Ben & Jerry

3. Olympic Bronze Medal: Australia

Hot on the heels of their antipodean cousins is Australia with ice cream consumption at 18 litres per person per year down under! We can’t really blame the Aussies for their love of ice cream though, we’d be in a similar situation if we had the same kind of climate. We can however, question their love of weak lager, BBQ-ing all in sundry, and their unnatural attachment to Holden muscle cars!

4. Denmark: Oh here’s a surprise finish! Those sneaky Danes end up in 4^th consuming 9 litres per person annually. Despite their ravenous Viking genes, they only eat half of what the population of Oz manages to munch through!

5. Finland: Your average Finn scoffs his way through 8.5 litres of ice cream annually, we can only imagine in between bouts of skiing

6.  Norway:  Norway is another colder climate ice cream loving country! They reach 6^th position by chomping down 8 litres of ice cream per person per year. However, special mention must be given for the role the country played in the expansion of the European ice cream industry as Norwegian glaciers were the source for much of Europe’s ice houses during the 19th century.

7. Canada: The Canadians came a close 7^th with an annual consumption of 7.5 litres per person. Perhaps we could tempt them with exports of our maple and walnut ice cream?

8. Sweden: A further Scandinavian country who enjoy their ice cream, Sweden ranks at number 8. The Swedes treat themselves to around 7 litres of ice cream per person per year, presumably in between creating cost effective furniture and whipping themselves with birch twigs.

9. Ireland: Despite a reputation for enjoying alcohol a tad too often, the Irish are impressive consumers of ice cream eating 6.5 litres of ice cream per person annually. We’re assuming that our Rum & Raisin  and Gin and Tonic Sorbet would go down well with our Celtic cousins.

10. Italy: The self declared masters of ice cream manage to scrape in the top ten with an annual consumption of around 6 litres per capita. The Italians narrowly squeezed out Germany and Great Britain from the top ten.

Our Olympic Torch

We’ve also created some Ice Cream Olympic Events for this article. Feel free to comment and add some more to our list!

1.      4 x100m Relay: obviously using an ice cream scoop in place of a baton.

2.      Egg & spoon: We’ve jazzed up this detested primary school event to incorporate running (if you can) 100m holding a single wafer cone loaded with 4 scoops of ice cream balanced on top of one another. The winner is the athlete who finishes with the most scoops still in situ.

3.      Swingboard hurdles: 110m hurdles replacing the hurdles with swing-boards advertising ice creams.

4.      Ice cream javelin: Whilst holding a ball of ice cream in a scoop, the athletes jettison said ball as far as feasibly possible. Obviously without overstepping the white line at the end of the run up

5.      High Jump: A twist on the high jump whereby competitors must jump through the service hatch of an ice cream van with the height being increased via jacks placed under the vehicle.