As a specialist insurance provider, including providing cover for ice cream vans, the team at Lexham wanted to find out everyone’s favourite flavours of ice cream worldwide. 

To achieve this, we analysed the monthly search volume of 22 popular ice cream flavours in 121 different countries. Here’s what we found:

• Chocolate tops the ice cream charts worldwide.
• America loves its cookie dough ice cream.
• Toffee is the favourite of the Icelandic.
• The people of the Philippines love their banana ice cream.

Most Popular Ice Cream Flavours Around the world

Top ten favourite ice cream flavours:

1. Chocolate ice cream = 97,790 monthly searches 

2. Vanilla ice cream = 89,210 monthly searches

3. Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream = 59,460 monthly searches

4. Cookie Dough ice cream = 54,850 monthly searches

5. Buttered Pecan ice cream = 51,350 monthly searches

6. Neapolitan ice cream = 45,280 monthly searches

7. Banana ice cream = 35, 310 monthly searches

8. Toffee ice cream = 30,810 monthly searches

9. Caramel ice cream = 30,310 monthly searches

10. Dark chocolate ice cream = 28,360 monthly searches

With a variety of diverse culinary cultures across the globe, we discovered an array of different flavour favourites across the globe. But the one that takes the top spot is chocolate. 

A true classic, chocolate ice cream is adored by 93% of the countries analysed, with 113 out of 121 countries searching for chocolate ice cream more than any other flavour in the past year. 

In a single month, 97,790 people across the world wondered where they could buy their favourite flavour, which equates to over 1,173,480 a year for those ice cream cravers.

Number two on the list is vanilla ice cream with more than one million global searches (1,070,520) per year. 

Despite coming second place, vanilla ice cream is a number one favourite in India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. 

Fun fact: In the 18th century, the French used vanilla to flavour ice cream - a delicious treat Thomas Jefferson discovered in the 1780s while living in Paris. Jefferson adored the vanilla-flavoured ice cream so much that he copied down a recipe and brought it back to America. The recipe is now preserved in the Library of Congress (for more fun facts, check out our history of ice cream article).

In third place ​​sits mint chocolate chip ice cream flavour, with a global monthly search volume of 59,460, which equates to 713,520 searches per year.

Mint chocolate chip flavour is the top pick in Ecuador, Madagascar, New Zealand, Russia and Tunisia, to name a few. 

Cookie dough ice cream comes in fourth place, with 54,850 monthly searches globally. It is also America’s favourite flavour, and top choice for Germany and Mexico.

In fifth place sits buttered pecan, with 51,350 global monthly searches. Despite being the fifth favourite globally, buttered pecan ice cream is number one for Denmark and Italy with 170 monthly searches and 210 monthly searches respectively.

Neapolitan ice cream sits comfortably in sixth place, with 45,280 monthly searches globally. 

It’s the top choice for the people of France, (perhaps unsurprisingly), with 500 monthly searches for the colourful ice cream.

Fun fact: Neapolitan ice cream originated from Naples, Italy and was made famous in the 19th century in Paris, France by Tortoni, the creator of numerous ice-cream cakes.

Banana ice cream is the seventh favourite flavour across the globe with a monthly search volume of 35, 310.

Despite being seventh place globally, banana flavoured ice cream steals top spot in the Philippines with 6,600 searches a month.

Toffee ice cream takes eighth place, with 30,810 global monthly searches. It’s a favourite in plenty of countries including Austria, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iceland, Cambodia and Norway, to name a few.

In ninth place sits caramel ice cream with 30,310 monthly searches across the globe.

Finally, dark chocolate ice cream takes tenth place with 28,360 global monthly searches. This delectable flavour is a favourite in Senegal.

If you’ve been inspired by this collection of delicious flavours and you own an ice cream selling business, take a look at our ice cream van insurance. From retro vehicles full of nostalgia to the latest in ice-cold refreshments, we can insure a variety of makes and models of ice cream vans.