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tion. Between 2012 and 2014, the market was happy to see
a group of high skilled Gelato masters as well as trendies who
have gradually learned the concept and features of Gelato
and developed fondness of this novelty.
2015-2019 adolescence: more source enterprises and inves-
tors have looked to the Chinese market. At the same time,
besides ice cream shops, an increasing number of coffee
shops, dessert parlors and mass-production ice cream facto-
ries have all started to step into the area.

While Gelato has entered the end of its second decade in the
Chinese market, it still remains to be modest in popularity, and
it’s worth pursuing, here is why:

Dietary habit difference Compared with western
food, traditional Chinese food would be mostly served hot
rather than cold. What’s more, it has not been too long
since dairy products began to get popularized in the coun-
try as the biggest effort was made only in 1997. It must be
difficult for an ice cream with 60% milk to cater to the
taste of a market which doesn’t like dairy and cold food. Main Forces in the Chinese Market
Ambiguous industry/product standard In China,
there is only product standard for mass-produced ice cream, In order to better understand Gelato’s road to China,
but none for Gelato, and this has caused chaos where Ge- we have interviewed two Gelato representative brands
lato producers and shops have no standard to follow and from Italy, the classic Fabbri and Carpigiani. Their popu-
evil material and equipment suppliers get mixed into good larity and development in China is a epitome of Gelato’s
ones. Rough mouth feel happens to the product sometimes, development in the country.
bringing shame to the shop and the entire industry.

Fabbri Fabbri was founded in 1905.
It is the most famous and time honored Italian
manufacturer of Gelato, bakery ingredients,
coffee syrup and beverage syrup. Its Gelato and pastry material has a 60%
market share in Italy and 50% in Europe.
Carpigiani Carpigiani was found
in 1946. In 1989, Carpigiani became part of
Ali Group, one of the biggest companies for
catering equipment production and distribu-
tion. Today’s Carpigiani is worthy of being the leading manufacturer of
Customers misunderstanding Without proper food equipment for ice cream, desserts etc. In 2007, it set up a manufactur-
learning and guidance, Chinese customers tend to take ing base in China, serving the Chinese and Asia-Pacific market.
Gelato as an ordinary type of ice cream, which makes it
extremely slow for Gelato to build its concept in China.
Drawbacks of traditional business model Since Q&A
freshness is the key to Gelato, most parlors in Western THE FOUR INTERVIEWEES
countries are front-shops and workshops and, rarely,
chains with uniform distribution. While everyday Gelato
freshness is defended to the most extent, by doing this, it
comes with the price of lacking support and appeal of a Stella Zhan
Fabbri China Chief Gelato and
powerful brand. Because of the solo business model, Pastry Technical Consultant
people only have an inkling of Gelato, and there is no brand and Trainer
yet that embodies the standard and culture of Gelato. In
this matter, the Gelato industry is changing its philosophy
and acting to bring the adolescent Chinese market a gift
for stepping into the adulthood. This gift is to build a real Kevin Lv
Fabbri Marketing Manager
and standard Gelato brand shop. It is very likely to be a
non-chain single shop but with proper scale.

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