Ice cream competitions and awards
Gelato Festival World Masters, the Gelato World Cup and the Sigep trade fair — which competitions exist and how ice cream makers from Central Europe fare in them.
Ice cream making has its world championships, national heats and trade fairs where makers of machines and ingredients meet the ice cream makers themselves. For a visitor to an ice cream shop, an award on the wall is a useful signal – but it’s worth knowing exactly what it means and who organises the competition.
Sigep in Rimini: the centre of the ice cream world
Every January the Italian city of Rimini hosts the Sigep trade fair, considered the largest ice cream fair in the world. Several competitions run during the fair at the same time – from team events to individual ones. For ice cream makers it’s the place where new techniques, flavours and machines are shown, and where the trends are born that turn up a year or two later in display cases in Bratislava or Brno.
Gelato World Cup
The Gelato World Cup (in Italian Coppa del Mondo della Gelateria) is a team competition held during Sigep. Instead of individuals, it pits national teams against one another.
Did you know?
At the 2026 edition, held on 16–20 January in Rimini, 12 teams competed. Singapore won, France came second and Argentina third (according to the results published by the organiser).
Singapore’s victory shows that artisan ice cream has long ceased to be a purely Italian affair. Italian technology and know-how are spreading around the world, and the competitions reflect this very well.
Gelato Festival World Masters
Gelato Festival World Masters is a competition for individual artisan ice cream makers. It is organised by Sigep (Italian Exhibition Group) together with the machine manufacturer Carpigiani. It runs as a multi-year cycle: first national and regional heats, then continental finals and finally the world final.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| First edition | 2010, Florence |
| 2017–2021 cycle | more than 3,500 participating ice cream makers |
| Current cycle | 2022–2025 |
| World final | planned for Sigep World, 23–27 January 2027, Rimini |
Source: Sigep (competition organiser).
The competition plays an important role for smaller family-run ice cream shops. Success in a national heat gives them visibility they would struggle to buy through advertising.
Successes from Central Europe
Ice cream makers from Czechia are making their mark in international competitions too. According to the daily Deník.cz, Martina Březinová of a family ice cream shop in Velká Dobrá won 2nd place in the European final of Gelato Festival World Masters. We haven’t been able to reliably verify the year of that final from the available sources. The same source states that the Czech selection round of the Gelato World Tour in 2022 was won by Jiří Hochman of the Moccacafé café in Tábor.
In Slovakia
We haven’t yet found verified information about Slovak competitions, ice cream makers’ guilds or awards such as “ice cream of the year”. If you know of a competition, let us know – we’ll be glad to add it.
In Czechia
We haven’t yet verified whether a national association of ice cream makers exists in Czechia. The successes of Czech ice cream makers are known mainly from international competitions.
What an award means for you as a customer
A certificate in an ice cream shop tells you that the maker can prepare an exceptional piece for a jury. It isn’t, however, a guarantee that every flavour on the everyday menu is of the same standard. So when choosing, combine awards with what you see in the display case:
- Which competition, and which year? An award from ten years ago says less about today’s quality than a recent success.
- What was it awarded for? A winning competition flavour is often seasonal or special. Ask whether they have it on the menu.
- What does the display case look like? Natural colours, a visible list of ingredients and allergens, and a clean shop say more every day than a trophy on the shelf.
- Do they make it themselves? Competitors are almost exclusively artisan ice cream makers with their own production. If a shop has no award, that may mean nothing – many excellent ice cream shops simply don’t take part in competitions.
Tip
If you have a favourite ice cream shop, ask whether it takes part in the national heats. Ice cream makers are usually happy to talk about their work, and they’ll often tell you which flavour is their “competition” one.
Why competitions benefit homemade ice cream too
Competitions move the whole field forward. The techniques shown there – balancing sugars, working with fruit without colourings, new plant-based bases – gradually find their way into books, courses and recipes for the home cook. In zmrzka, too, you’ll find recipes built on the same principles as professional gelato: balanced solids, the right ratio of sugars and fresh ingredients.
Sources
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