Pistachio Gelato’s China Moment — Notes from Ice Cream China 2026

MARKET NOTE · ICE CREAM CHINA · TIANJIN

We are at Ice Cream China 2026 in Tianjin this week — 16–18 September, Booth N2-H18. This is not a stand announcement. It is the market context we carried in: why pistachio went from a niche flavour to the one China’s ice-cream trade is reorganising itself around — and what that shift asks of an ingredient supplier.

The event record

The Market Around the Show

China’s ice cream business is already one of the world’s largest and still compounding — about ¥183.5 billion in 2024, on course for roughly ¥233 billion by 2030. The structure matters more than the headline. Fresh-made ice cream — gelato counters, tea-chain windows, mall kiosks — is the fastest-growing part of the trade at roughly a fifth of the market, while gelato specifically reached ¥16.2 billion in 2025 and still accounts for under 9% of the total. Per-capita consumption of about 3 kg a year, against Japan’s 11 kg, leaves headroom that most food categories no longer have.

The Pistachio Signal

Inside that category, pistachio stopped behaving like a flavour and started behaving like an event. The clearest case is Yerenxiansheng (野人先生), the chain that built its expansion on a pistachio gelato: from around 300 stores to more than 1,300 — now the world’s largest gelato chain by store count — with pistachio as the signature SKU priced ¥38 against a ¥28 menu, more than 900,000 units moved through group-buy channels alone, and roughly 30% same-store growth after the flavour went viral in late 2023.

The majors followed. DQ — 1,800-plus stores and the country’s biggest ice-cream chain — launched a pistachio Blizzard in March 2025 built around “about 60 pistachios per cup”, ranking first in pistachio ice-cream sales on Meituan-Dianping in its launch week. The tea sector then walked into gelato itself: CHAGEE’s Geelato line and HEYTEA’s gelato offer now sit on menus built originally for milk tea. As Yerenxiansheng’s founder put it to 36Kr, the flavour travelled from one counter “to the whole ice-cream industry, then to bakery and tea drinks” in under two years.

What We Are Showing at Booth N2-H18

For the chains and manufacturers behind those numbers, the question is no longer whether pistachio sells — the market answered that — but whether the input holds up: colour that stays green without added colourant, roast aroma that survives the freeze, and a fat profile that works with a gelato base instead of against it. That is the standard our paste is built to, and it is what visitors can taste at the counter this week.

Recommended Nutoast products

Recipes on our site

Where You Can Meet Us Next

The schedule below covers the exhibitions currently planned through 2027.

1. 16–18 SEP2026FI ASIA INDONESIA 2026Food Ingredients Asia · Jakarta
2. 16–18 SEP2026ICE CREAM CHINA 2026The 28th China Ice Cream & Frozen Food Industry Expo · Tianjin
3. 13–15 OCT2026HOTELEX Shenzhen 2026Shenzhen International Hospitality & Catering Expo · Shenzhen
4. 22–24 OCT2026Bakery China Autumn 2026The 11th China International Bakery Autumn Exhibition · Wuhan
5. 02–05 MAR2027MOBAC SHOW 2027The 30th Machinery, Materials, Marketing of Bakery and Confectionery Show · Chiba
6. 15–19 MAR2027Gulfood 2027Dubai World Trade Centre & Dubai Exhibition Centre
7. 30 MAR–02 APR2027HOTELEX Shanghai 2027The 35th Shanghai International Hospitality & Catering Expo · Shanghai
8. 24–28 OCT2027iba 2027The World’s Leading Trade Fair for the Baking and Confectionery Industry · Munich

All dates are planned and subject to confirmation, and further international food exhibitions will be announced. If you would like to arrange a meeting at any of them — or discuss an application before then — we are glad to hear from you.

Sources: iiMedia Research 2025–26 China ice-cream industry monitoring report; ChinaIRN 2026 industry analysis; Beijing News, 36Kr and TMTPost reporting on Yerenxiansheng; DQ China launch release via PR Newswire, March 2025. Third-party photographs are credited to their owners and reproduced here for market commentary.