Frozen Dessert Trends 2026: Ice Cream, Gelato, Mochi and More

The frozen dessert business is not one market. It is a group of related categories growing at very different speeds, serving different customers, and needing different packaging. Here is what the 2026 data actually says, and what it means for how you store and move your product.

1. The US ice cream market in 2026

Ice cream is still the anchor of the category. According to an April 2026 survey by the International Dairy Foods Association and Morning Consult, 97 percent of Americans say they love or like ice cream. Per capita consumption sits at roughly 19 pounds, or about 4 gallons, per person per year.

Market size figures vary a lot depending on who is counting and what they include. This is worth knowing before you quote any single number.

The gap comes down to scope. Circana tracks what rings up at retail. IBISWorld measures production. Grand View and Mordor use broader definitions that pull in more of the category. All of them point the same direction: steady growth in the low single digits, with value climbing faster than volume.

IBISWorld counted 1,117 ice cream production businesses in the US in 2026. The IDFA reported 1.31 billion gallons produced in 2024.

What Americans are actually buying

The IDFA 2026 survey found that chocolate has overtaken vanilla as America's favorite flavor since 2024. The current top five:

1. Chocolate
2. Butter pecan
3. Vanilla
4. Cookies and cream
5. Caramel and salted caramel

Two of those, cookies and cream and caramel, are new entries. That matters for a shop owner. Flavor rotation is not just a novelty play anymore. The center of the market is moving.

Growth is happening at the edges too. Instacart order data from summer 2024 showed pineapple coconut up 37 percent year over year, pistachio up 25 percent, and green tea up 24 percent. Those are not top five flavors, but they are the fastest climbers, and they tend to appear in scoop shops before they reach grocery freezers.

Where the growth is coming from

Premiumization is the single biggest driver. Consumers are paying more for higher quality, unique flavors, and a more indulgent experience. Alongside that, low sugar, plant based, and artisanal products are pulling in customers who might otherwise skip dessert entirely.

Roughly 70 percent of ice cream is eaten at home, and over 75 percent of buyers prefer family sized packs. About 35 percent say they want natural ingredients without artificial additives.

Circana data cited in Dairy Foods Magazine showed ice cream sales dipped slightly in 2025, with lighter frozen alternatives picking up ground. That is not a collapse. It is a shift in what people reach for.

2. Gelato, the fastest growing premium category

Gelato has moved well beyond Italian restaurants and specialty dessert shops. Shoppers now find it in grocery freezers, hotel restaurants, and neighborhood scoop shops sitting right next to traditional ice cream.

Custom Market Insights valued the US gelato market at 4.14 billion dollars in 2026, up from 3.97 billion in 2025, with a forecast of 6.09 billion by 2035 at a 4.38 percent compound annual growth rate.

The wider frozen dessert category is moving faster still. The US frozen desserts market is projected to grow at 10.6 percent annually from 2026 to 2033, with gelato, custard, and ice cream all contributing.

The segment breakdown from 2025 tells you where gelato demand actually sits.

Artisanal leading the production method segment is the important line. It means gelato growth is being driven by small and mid sized producers making product on site, not just by large manufacturers scaling up.

Why gelato behaves differently

Gelato contains less fat and less air than ice cream. That produces a richer texture and a more intense flavor. It also means gelato is denser by volume, which affects how much weight a container carries and how the product behaves in a display case.

American ice cream grew up around supermarket culture, convenience, and large portions. Grocery freezers filled with oversized tubs, candy mix ins, and limited edition flavors turned ice cream into a mass market category built on variety. Gelato went the other way, staying tied to smaller batch production and premium positioning.

For a shop owner that difference shows up in the cabinet. Gelato is usually served from barrel style pans in a display case where customers can see the product. Ice cream is more often scooped from round tubs in a dipping cabinet. Different service style, different container needs.

3. Mochi, the highest growth rate of all

Mochi is the fastest growing category in this group by percentage. The global mochi market was valued at 4.8 billion dollars in 2025 and is projected to reach 8.9 billion by 2034, a 7.1 percent compound annual growth rate.

North America is the fastest growing region of all, at 8.2 percent CAGR from 2026 to 2034. The North American mochi ice cream category alone was valued at over 420 million dollars by 2025, and more than 480 million units were consumed in North America in 2025.

Looking at frozen mochi ice cream specifically, the global market was 3.8 billion dollars in 2025, forecast to hit 7.2 billion by 2034 at a 7.4 percent CAGR. Asia Pacific still holds the largest regional share at 42.3 percent, but North America is the fastest growing Western market.

Mochi's move from niche import to mainstream freezer item is essentially complete. Global consumption has spread to over 60 countries. Foodservice operators including bubble tea shops and Asian fusion restaurants are adding mochi to menus as toppings, sides, and standalone dessert features.

4. Italian ice is going year round

The global Italian ice market reached 2.14 billion dollars in 2024 and is projected to grow at a 5.7 percent CAGR through 2033, reaching 3.57 billion dollars. North America remains the largest market, helped by strong product awareness, established distribution, and a deep culture of frozen dessert consumption.

Fruit based Italian ice dominates the category and held the largest share in 2024. The full segment breakdown covers fruit based, dairy based, sugar free, and other formats.

The biggest change in this category is timing. Italian ice is shifting toward year round consumption instead of staying a summer only product. Nostalgic fruit flavors like lemon and cherry still anchor sales, while demand rises for low calorie and vegan options.

Flavor innovation is picking up too. Spicy mango, salted caramel, and floral infusions like lavender and hibiscus are showing up as producers chase more adventurous palates.

Italian ice producers have a specific packaging need that ice cream shops do not. Because the product is water based, many producers use plastic gusseted liners inside their containers. This is one of the clearest cases where the dessert type directly changes the packaging setup. Our coated corrugated guide covers why moisture handling matters so much in this category.

5. Frozen custard, the underrated category

Frozen custard gets less coverage than gelato or mochi, but it operates almost exactly like ice cream from a production and storage standpoint, which makes it worth understanding.

To be legally called frozen custard, a mixture must contain a minimum of 10 percent milkfat and 1.4 percent egg yolk by weight. The egg yolk is what separates custard from ice cream. It acts as an emulsifier and produces a denser, smoother product.

The franchise side of custard is expanding. Whit's Frozen Custard, founded in Granville, Ohio in 2003, reached 103 locations across 10 states by 2026. Nielsen's Frozen Custard, founded in Bountiful, Utah in 1981, operates 11 locations across Utah and Nevada.

Custard is typically found at amusement parks, boardwalks, and burger restaurants, and it is often served alongside Italian ice and slushies. That combination matters. A shop selling custard is frequently selling two or three frozen categories at once, each with its own storage needs.

Because custard is batch produced and stored in bulk before service, it uses the same container formats as ice cream. A shop running custard needs the same corrugated ice cream boxes and cold storage packaging as a traditional creamery.

6. Frozen yogurt, sorbet, and sherbet

These three sit in the middle of the category. None is growing as fast as mochi or gelato, but all three are stable parts of a shop's lineup and all three affect your storage plan.

Frozen yogurt, frozen custard, and sherbet are all classified as frozen dairy desserts, and each can be produced hard frozen or soft frozen. Sorbet sits outside the dairy group entirely, since sorbets and water ices contain no milk derived ingredients.

That distinction is not just technical. It affects cross contamination handling, allergen labeling, and how you separate product in a walk in freezer. A shop running both dairy and non dairy frozen desserts needs clear separation in storage, which usually means clearly marked, uniform containers rather than a mix of leftover tubs.

Sorbet in particular benefits from the same trend pushing plant based ice cream. Customers avoiding dairy for allergy, intolerance, or preference reasons are looking for something on the menu, and sorbet is the simplest answer for most shops.

7. Soft serve stays in its own lane

Soft serve has been sold commercially in the US since the late 1930s. It uses only 3 to 6 percent milkfat, with air introduced during the mixing process to keep the texture light and smooth.

The key operational difference is that soft serve is not stored as finished product. A machine holds pre mixed product at a low but not frozen temperature at the point of sale, then dispenses it on demand.

In the US, soft serve is rarely sold prepackaged in supermarkets. It shows up at fairs, carnivals, amusement parks, fast food restaurants, buffets, and specialty shops.

For packaging purposes, soft serve is the outlier in this group. It needs mix storage, not bulk tub storage. If soft serve is your only frozen product, your container needs look very different from a scoop shop's.

8. What all of this means for packaging

Every trend above eventually lands in the same place: how the product gets stored, moved, and displayed.

The global ice cream packaging market was estimated at 1.3 billion dollars in 2026 and is projected to reach 1.8 billion by 2033, growing at a 4.5 percent CAGR. That growth is driven by rising frozen dessert consumption, retailer strategies covering both family sized tubs and single serve formats, and a sustained industry shift toward sustainable materials that balance barrier performance with recyclability.

North America is leading adoption of portion controlled tubs, recyclable paperboard cartons, and biodegradable formats. Minimalist, craft style package design is gaining ground as premium and artisanal producers expand.

The material question

Industry material comparisons consistently show the same trade off. Plastic containers dominate on cost and durability. Paper based options are gaining traction among environmentally conscious buyers. We covered this in depth in cardboard versus plastic ice cream containers, including the cases where plastic genuinely wins.

The same analysis breaks buyers into three groups with different needs. Retail buyers want smaller, consumer ready formats with good branding surfaces. Foodservice operators need larger bulk containers optimized for portioning efficiency. Institutional buyers, including schools and hospitals, prioritize cost per serving and storage efficiency.

If you run a scoop shop, a creamery, or a production facility, you are in that middle group. Your priority is bulk capacity, stacking efficiency, and clean portioning, not retail shelf appeal.

Longer term, container market analysts expect a gradual replacement of traditional packaging systems with more sustainable and functionally advanced alternatives. Volume growth in the container market will stay modest, since it is tied to overall ice cream consumption, but value growth will be driven disproportionately by material upgrades and premium formats.

Storage efficiency is a real cost

Freezer space is one of the most expensive square footages in a dessert business. Every inch wasted on inefficient container shapes is space you paid to keep cold.

Round tubs waste space by design. Four round tubs sitting side by side leave gaps at every corner. Rectangle and square boxes do not. That is why our 2.5 gallon rectangle box is our best seller. It fits 2.5 gallon batch sizes, displays up to 12 flavors in a traditional 8 round tub dipping cabinet configuration, and stacks and transports more efficiently than round containers.

The same logic applies to gelato. Barrel style gelato cabinets have their own dimensions, which is why we make a 1.5 gallon octagon gelato box built specifically for that setup rather than asking gelato shops to make an ice cream box work. If you are unsure which format matches your equipment, our container sizing guide walks through it.

Our RAPASTACK stackable nesting containers are made from 32pt food grade paper with reinforced plastic rings and true flat bottoms. They arrive ready to fill with no assembly and no equipment required, and they are used once and discarded.

For a high volume shop, the labor savings on cleaning can offset the recurring cost of disposable containers. For a smaller shop with spare staff hours, the math may work out differently. Run the numbers for your own operation rather than assuming either way.

9. What shop owners should take from this

• Gelato deserves a real look. It is growing faster than ice cream in the US, it is led by artisanal producers rather than large manufacturers, and it commands premium pricing. If you already run an ice cream shop, gelato is an adjacent product line rather than a new business.
• Flavor rotation matters more than it used to. Cookies and cream and caramel are new to the top five. Pineapple coconut, pistachio, and green tea are the fastest climbers. Shops that rotate flavors are better positioned than shops running a fixed lineup.
• Year round categories reduce seasonality risk. Italian ice moving toward year round consumption is a signal, and so is the broader shift toward lighter frozen alternatives. A summer only product mix leaves revenue on the table.
• Storage efficiency compounds. Container shape, stacking performance, and cleaning labor are small line items individually. Across a full season at volume they add up to real money.
• Watch the sustainability shift. Paper based packaging is gaining ground for a reason. Customers notice, and in some markets regulation is moving that direction anyway. Switching on your own timeline is easier than switching under pressure.

10. Frequently asked questions