11 Of The Most Popular Ice Cream Flavors In America (2024)

FAQs

What is the most popular flavor of ice cream in America? ›

1. Vanilla. Above all types of ice cream flavors, vanilla is America's favorite for a reason: it's simple and it goes with everything.

With unit sales of approximately 176 million, Ben & Jerry's was the leading brand of ice cream in the United States in 2023. While Ben & Jerry's was the leading brand, private labels sold a total of over 401 million units that year.

The World's Favorite Flavor

According to Datassential, 81% of consumers love or like vanilla and 94% have tried it. Consumer affinity for the spice remains so great that it is estimated there are at least 18,000 products on the market today that contain vanilla flavor.

Most Canadians prefer chocolate-flavoured ice cream, closely followed by one in ten each that mention vanilla, mint chocolate, maple walnut, and butterscotch. Seven percent of Canadians each mention cookie dough and cookies and cream, while fewer prefer strawberry, moose tracks, Neapolitan, and moon mist.

Howard Johnson's soon became known for its 28 flavors of thick ice cream that had double the butterfat of most competitors' products. "During the post-war boom, Johnson began expanding rapidly, so by the company's peak in the 1960s, there would have been dozens of restaurants on the South Shore alone," Elliott said.

Apparently it is so called because the majority of ice cream merchants in the fifties were Italian. The King of Italy had an elite bodyguard consisting of 99 men. So anything elite was called 99s by Italians. So they called the elite ice cream a 99.

Real ice cream is made from 100% dairy – milk, and products made from milk (including cream, skim milk powder, and whey powder). Frozen desserts are made with vegetable oils, like palm, kernel, or coconut oil.

Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry are three of the most popular ice cream flavors so it only makes sense to combine them in this creamy mash-up known as Neapolitan ice cream.

Rocky Road, 4% Only four percent of Americans count Rocky Road Ice Cream as their favourite flavor. It is a chocolate-based ice cream with chopped almonds and marshmallow pieces mixed through. The ice cream flavor is often said to have originated in Australia.

Is chocolate or vanilla ice cream more popular? ›

According to new data from YouGov Omnibus, 96% of Americans eat ice cream. The most popular flavor is chocolate (14%), followed by vanilla (13%) and butter pecan (11%). There are some interesting differences when accounting for age.

While traditional ice cream flavors still dominate IDFA's list, newer flavors like Butter Pecan and Cookie Dough are shaking up the top five. According to the survey, America's favorite flavor is Vanilla, with Chocolate and Strawberry coming in as second and third top choices.