ROME, Italy – What better time than summer to announce the world ranking of gelato shops? Gelato Festival World Ranking – the world’s most comprehensive industry ranking for individual gelato artisans promoted by Gelato Festival, Carpigiani, and Sigep Italian Exhibition Group – has updated its standings, crowning Marco Venturino of I Giardini di Marzo gelato shop in Varazze, Savona, Italy, as the best gelato artisan of 2022.
A complex scoring system that takes into account participation in competitions and qualifying rounds from 2011 to the present and the results achieved have placed him on the top of the podium with 246 points and an impressive three crowns.
Gelato Festival World Ranking rates individual gelato artisans based on scores earned over 11 years of competitions and more than 5,000 gelato artisans evaluated by hundreds of experts. 1,098 gelato parlors have reached the minimum score required to be included in the 2022 ranking.
The full list is available here: https://gelatofestival.com/pages/world-ranking-2022
Eugenio Morrone of Rome’s Il Cannolo Siciliano gelato shop, who had been ranked first in 2020 and in the same year won the gold medal at the Gelato World Cup as a member of the Italy team, earned a spot in the Gelato Festival World Ranking’s Hall of Fame. He will no longer participate in the upcoming competitions as a competitor but will become one of its qualified judges.
The runner-up in the ranking, with 225 points, is the newcomer Ádám Fazekas of the Fazekas Cukrászda gelato shop in Budapest, Hungary, the winner of the Gelato Festival World Masters in 2021 in December with Pistachio Fruit, the World’s Best Gelato Flavor, after four years of qualifications and beating out competitors from Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa.
In third place with 215 points is the incredible Giovanna Bonazzi of La Parona of Gelato di Parona (Verona), an ardent competitor in recent editions of the Gelato Festival who has turned her winning past in mountain biking, with two world titles as a professional racer, into another podium in the world of gelato.
“The announcement of the ranking is the time to kick off the new competition scheduled for 2022-2025. The renewal of the partnership with Carpigiani and Sigep IEG Expo can only fill me with joy knowing that with this team we have overcome difficult times such as 2020 and 2021 by inventing new digital formats that have paid off with great success,” comments Adriana Tancredi, Project Manager of Gelato Festival Europe.
“A first draft of the calendar is already on the website and we plan to have 8 events in the 2022: 2 in Italy, 5 in Europe and 1 the U.S. The format will change slightly to accommodate gelato artisans’ requests to compete during the off-season and focus on a closed-door competition with experienced, qualified judges.”
Gelato professionals interested in participating in the upcoming competitions can register through the website at gelatofestival.it.
“This new four-year Gelato Festival coming up is part of the 20-year celebration of Carpigiani Gelato University, which has been training successful gelato artisans at its 21 campuses around the world for two decades,” adds Kaori Ito, Carpigiani Gelato University & Communications Director.
“Reading the stories of those who have achieved top rankings is always exciting and makes it clear that we are on the right track. Gelato is a centuries-old Italian tradition, and it is a way of doing business while giving one’s life a new purpose or a chance at a second career, such as Giovanna Bonazzi, a former world mountain bike champion, or Carlo Guerriero, a chemical engineer who has found a new way of applying his studies.”
“Artisanal gelato remains one of the top Italian products in the world, as demonstrated by the growing consumption and high quality,” concludes Valentina Sorgente, Exhibition Manager Sigep Italian Exhibition Group.
“Speaking of international reach, I’m pleased to announce a new development for the next edition of Sigep, which will be held January 21-25, 2023 at Italian Exhibition Group’s Fiera di Rimini: the first edition of the Gelato Europe Cup, which will select the European teams for the Gelato World Cup, scheduled to be held once again at Sigep in 2024.”
Gelato Festival World Ranking: 4th to 9th place
4th place – USA – Savannah G. Lee of Savannah’s Gelato in San Francisco, CA – 210 points
5th place – ITALY – Massimiliano Scotti of the Vero Latte gelato shop in Vigevano (PV) – 195 points
6th place – SPAIN – Maurizio Melani of Véneta Gelato Italiano in Valencia with 188 points
7th place – ITALY – Fabio Forghieri of Gelateria dei Principi in Correggio (RE) with 178 points
8th place – SPAIN – Carlo Guerriero of La Cremeria Italian gelato in Cadiz with 177 points
9th place tied – ITALY – Leonardo La Porta of Gelateria Miretti in Turin with 171 points
9th place tied – ITALY – Paolo Pomposi of Gelateria Pasticceria Badiani in Florence with 171 points
The full ranking can be seen at https://gelatofestival.com/pages/world-ranking-2022
How the ranking works
As of July 2022 the Gelato Festival World Ranking includes more than 5,000 gelato professionals from Africa, Asia, America, and Europe. Points are calculated based on participation in gelato competitions promoted by Gelato Festival, Sigep – IEG Expo, and Carpigiani from 2011 to the present, such as: Carpigiani Challenge, Gelato Festival Challenge, Carpigiani Day, Gelato Festival competitions open to the public, and digital events in 2020-2021.
Each event contributes to the artisan’s overall score, which is then used to determine a global ranking, aimed at achieving the goal of engaging and mapping the more than 100,000 artisanal gelato shops around the world.
Those who earn a particularly high score will see it translated into “crowns,” a symbol of success achieved in the ranking, from one up to a maximum of five. Currently there are 56 “crowned” gelato artisans. Of these, 30 have earned one crown (14 more than in 2020), 19 have earned two crowns (11 in 2020) and seven have been awarded three crowns.
Artisanal gelato, the numbers in Italy and Europe (Sigep Observatory data, March 2022)
After the setback in consumption due to the pandemic, gelato in Italy closed 2021 up 19.5% versus 2020 (-17.8% compared to 2019). Consumption was supported mainly by summer domestic tourism and traffic from Germany and Spain, the two most vibrant markets for artisanal gelato consumption in Europe.
In absolute terms, the consumption curve, which reached 2.8 billion in Italy in 2019 and dropped to 1.85 billion in 2020, rebounded to 2.3 billion in 2021 (Sigep Observatory elaboration on ISTAT data of services sector turnover).
While gelato shops are present in 76 countries around the world, Europe continues to be the main market for artisanal gelato both in terms of the presence of actual shops (about 65,000) and the consumption of artisanal products.
The leading countries are Italy, Germany, Spain and Poland, but others like Austria, France, Belgium, and Holland also have thriving local markets. Italy’s leadership in the world also concerns the sector of gelato ingredients and semi-finished products, with 65 companies generating a total turnover of 1.8 billion euros, of which 800 million for gelato semi-finished products, 60% of which are exported (source: Italian Food Union’s gelato products group).
Gelato Festival debuted in Florence in 2010, inspired by the creation of the first gelato recipe by the versatile architect Bernardo Buontalenti in 1559. Since then the event has expanded its borders, first to the rest of Italy, then to Europe and – starting in 2017 – the United States, with a total of 80 Festivals held, before embracing the entire planet with the world championship of Gelato Festival World Masters 2021, which concluded in December 2021 and saw a record of 3,500 gelato artisans judged by international juries.
