Italy’s economy may be struggling as European Union rivals recover, but there’s one area where the country is an unrivaled leader: ice cream, as demand from sweet-toothed gelato lovers has made the country Europe’s top producer.
Italian ice cream makers whipped up 595 million liters (157 million gallons) of gelato last year, or 19 percent of total EU production, according to official statistics. That would work out to about 6.8 billion scoops of ice cream. Germany ranked second with 515 million liters.
