The need to have official and reliable data on the artisan ice cream sector has long been highlighted by the Fiera di Longarone. Already in 2011, as part of the MIG-International Exhibition of Artisan Gelato, a round table had been organized to investigate the issue that revealed that the main difficulty in framing the sector was the fact that ice cream shops do not have a specific classification but are identified with an ATECO code that they share with pastry shops. In addressing the research, the experts of the CGIA of Mestre, to which Longarone Fiere commissioned the study, immediately found this obstacle but thanks to their recognized skills, they managed to achieve the result by analyzing and cross-referencing various additional data available such as Sector studies and other INPS and Istat databases. The picture that emerges is truly interesting and exhaustive as it offers an overview of the artisan gelato sector with direct sales to the public which includes, in addition to the classic ice cream shops, other establishments with different "core businesses", such as ice cream bars and pastry shops, where ice cream however contributes to the determination of revenues.
Furthermore, the itinerant ice cream parlor activities and the ice cream production companies without direct sales, which although residual in number, have a very specific tradition and economic and employment weight were taken into consideration. To make everything easier to understand and understand the dynamics of the entire sector (ice cream and pastry shops), CGIA proposes a study divided into two parts that starts from the presentation of the official data collected by the Business Register and then goes on to the estimate of the specific artisan ice cream sector. intended as an asset that is produced and sold directly to the public.
While the complete study can be downloaded from the website www.miglongarone.it, we report below a summary of the results:
Using only chamber data, without worrying about the presence of pastry shops in the same ATECO code, it is possible to grasp the basic trends:
- In the last decade there has been a slight increase in the number of locations, while the corporate headquarters in recent years have recorded a slight decrease, particularly accentuated for craft businesses
- The incidence of female and youth enterprises tends to decrease even if their presence is higher than the average that is found in all economic activities
- Enterprises run by foreigners tend to increase, but their incidence is lower than that recorded with respect to the total economic sectors
Using the data of the sector studies it is possible to estimate the size of the artisan gelato sector with direct sale to the public in 15.589 active company offices, of which:
- about 7.000 companies in which the production and sale of homemade ice cream represents the "core business"
- over 3.000 "Gelato bars" where ice cream is a significant part of the turnover (half)
- about 5.500 patisseries that integrate their activity with the production and sale of homemade ice cream
- The "employees" involved in the activities in which the production and direct sale of homemade ice cream are present are approximately 62 thousand; not only those who work in "pure ice cream parlors" are considered, but also those who work in ice cream bars or patisseries with the sale of homemade ice cream
- If we want to express the workforce supported by the sector in terms of ULA (standard work unit), we can estimate that the revenues from the sale of artisan ice cream are able to support about 30 thousand work units
- In Italy, according to ISTAT, each family spends over 70 euros annually on ice cream
- the annual expenditure of Italian families for ice cream is 1.862 million euros; if we add to this figure the consumption of tourists we can reach 2 billion euros (1.964 million euros).
- The consumption of homemade ice cream represents 52% of the national needs
- The production of ice cream in Italy is equal to 2.085 million euros, of which 1.063 comes from the industrial sector and 1.022 from the artisan sector
- The production and sale of artisan ice cream is an important sector of our economy, employing about 30.000 ULA with a turnover that exceeds 1 billion euros per year.
It is significant that this study, the first of its kind in Italy, was carried out in Veneto, the land of ice cream makers, a territory from which the Cadorini and Zoldan pioneers started from the mid-1800s, to whom the credit should be attributed - not of having I invented ice cream, as some believe - but that I have undertaken, developed, spread and made this activity known in the main cities of northern and central Italy, in the countries of central Europe and even beyond the ocean.