This Sunny State Eats The Most Ice Cream

Ice cream might be the ultimate summer treat. Its cold, frozen nature means it easily cools you down on a hot day while providing you a sweet hit of flavor. Ice cream also brings back memories of warm summer days off school in childhood. Given this, it should come as no surprise that the state that eats the most ice cream is a warm, sunny locale: California.

Zippia used data from Gravy Analytics to determine which U.S. state eats the most ice cream based on its size and attendance at local ice cream parlors. California came in first, as there are over 4,200 ice cream shops in the state that see thousands of visitors yearly. California is a significant producer of ice cream as well, explaining the popularity of the treat in the state.

In addition, when analyzing what markets spend the most on ice cream per capita, SiteSeer found that 10 of the top 25 cities for ice cream expenditures were in California, taking up more real estate on the list than any other individual state. San Francisco specifically earned third on the list, just behind New York and Honolulu with each person spending an average of $43.75 per year. Given these numbers and the fact that California had the largest population of any U.S. state in 2024, it's safe to say that more ice cream is eaten in the state than anywhere else.

While California topped Zippia's list of ice cream consumption per state, Minnesota took the bottom spot, which makes sense as the Northern state often sees cold temperatures. Surprisingly, though, Alabama took spot 49, and two other Southern states (Louisiana and Mississippi) were also in the bottom 10. The reasoning for this is unclear, but it's possible people in these locales simply have other preferred ways to cool down.

With so much ice cream being eaten in California, you may wonder what the state's favorite flavor is. According to a 2023 Scholaroo survey tracking online shopping data, California's favorite ice cream flavor was rocky road, a flavor that dates all the way back to the Great Depression. The other popular flavors, in order, included chocolate, neapolitan, cookie dough, and coconut. The latter result may come from people looking for dairy-free options, as coconut milk is often seen as the best option for non-dairy ice cream. The most popular flavor nationwide, however, was chocolate, with 23 states choosing it as their favorite flavor. It also ranked in the top 5 for California and every other state except Wyoming and Massachusetts, proving to be very popular.

However, Fox 8 used Stacker's data and determined that the most popular ice cream flavor in America was vanilla. The disparity here may be that Stacker actually interviewed individuals, while Scholaroo tracked online shopping. Though more people prefer vanilla, they aren't ordering as much of it online, meaning it's possible that more chocolate ice cream is actually being consumed. We can only hope they aren't ordering Tasting Table's least favorite chocolate ice cream.