Adám Fazekas of Budapest Tops the Gelato Festival World Ranking

The 2024 Gelato Festival World Ranking has a new leader, and this time you have to look east. The ranking is the most comprehensive industry listing for individual gelato artisans, promoted by Gelato Festival World Masters, Carpigiani and Sigep Italian Exhibition Group. Its latest update names Adám Fazekas of Fazekas Cukrászda in Budapest, Hungary, as the best gelato artisan of 2024. A complex scoring system, which counts competitions and qualifying rounds from 2011 to today, put him on top with 227 points and three crowns.

The podium

• 1st: Adám Fazekas, Fazekas Cukrászda, Budapest, Hungary, with 227 points.
• 2nd: Giovanna Bonazzi, La Parona del Gelato, Parona, Verona, with 213 points. She is the top Italian, and a keen competitor in recent Gelato Festival editions who has turned a mountain biking career with two world titles as a professional racer into a podium in gelato.
• 3rd: Savannah G. Lee, Savannah’s Gelato Kitchen, San Francisco, California, with 208 points and three crowns.

Marco Venturino of I Giardini di Marzo in Varazze, Savona, ranked first in 2022, has been inducted into the ranking’s Hall of Fame. He will stop competing and become one of its qualified judges, joining Eugenio Morrone of Il Cannolo Siciliano in Rome, who ranked first in 2020 and won gold at the Gelato World Cup that year as part of Italy’s team.

Ranks 4 to 10

• 4th: Massimiliano Scotti, VeroLatte, Vigevano, Italy, 193 points, three crowns
• 5th: Maurizio Melani, Véneta Gelato Italiano, Valencia, Spain, 186 points, three crowns
• 6th (tied): Fabio Forghieri, Gelateria dei Principi, Correggio, Italy, 176 points, two crowns
• 6th (tied): Leonardo La Porta, Gelateria Miretti, Turin, Italy, 176 points, two crowns
• 7th: Carlo Guerriero, La Cremeria Gelato Italiano, Cadiz, Spain, 175 points, two crowns
• 8th (tied): Paolo Pomposi, Gelateria Pasticceria Badiani, Florence, Italy, 169 points, two crowns
• 8th (tied): Tomasz Szypula, Szypula – 1974, Baborów, Poland, 169 points, two crowns
• 9th: Fabrizio Fenu, I Fenu, Cagliari, Italy, 164 points, two crowns
• 10th: Taseer, Fabulous Ice Fires, London, UK, 158 points, two crowns

Moved from one crown to two:

• Giuseppe Lollino, Vero Coffee and Gelato, Illinois, USA, 132 points
• Gian Paolo Porrino, L’arte del dolce, Vittuone, Italy, 121 points
• Andrea Riva, GelArt, Sesto San Giovanni, Italy, 117 points

Ten newly crowned artisans for 2024 (one crown):

• Francesco Simone Sodano, Is Pop, Pomigliano d’Arco, Italy, 90 points
• Salvatore Ravese, Gelateria Garden, Gioia Tauro, Italy, 78.5 points
• Niccolò Caradonna, Gelateria Genius, Lastra a Signa, Italy, 78 points
• Emanuele Alvaro, Gelateria-Cioccolateria Maravè, Rome, Italy, 72.5 points
• Oscar Nassa, Gelateria Lapecoranera, Brescia, Italy, 72.5 points
• Golan Chetrit, Noi Due Gelato, New York City, USA, 72 points
• Luca Castellucci, Gelateria Demetra, Santa Maria degli Angeli, Italy, 72 points
• Paolo Macor, Dolci Emozioni, Cordovado, Italy, 72 points
• Alessandro Cesari, Sablè Gelato, Bologna, Italy, 72 points
• Gabriele Fiumara, California Café, Santa Teresa di Riva, Italy, 72 points

The full list is on the Gelato Festival World Ranking 2024 page.

How the ranking works

As of June 2024 the ranking covers around 8,000 gelato professionals across Africa, Asia, America and Europe. Points come from competitions promoted by Gelato Festival, Sigep – IEG Expo and Carpigiani from 2011 onwards, including the Carpigiani Challenge, Gelato Festival Challenge, Carpigiani Day, public Gelato Festival competitions and the digital events of 2020-2021. Each event adds to an artisan’s total, which sets a global ranking aimed at engaging and mapping the more than 100,000 artisan gelato shops worldwide. High scorers earn “crowns”, from one up to a maximum of five.

Over 13 years of competitions, more than 8,000 gelato artisans have been assessed by hundreds of experts. 1,278 gelato shops reached the minimum score for the 2024 ranking, including 681 newcomers since 2022, meaning professionals who joined the qualifying rounds from 2022 to 2025. A total of 498 artisans dropped out of 2024 after losing points for 24 months without taking part in an event. Sixty-one professionals hold crowns: five with three, 24 with two and 32 with one.

What the organisers said

• Adriana Tancredi, Project Manager for the Gelato Festival World Masters, described the ranking as an important moment for gelato professionals and a way to measure the growth of the Gelato Festival World Masters family. She said almost 700 new artisans had been added in two years, judged at challenges across Europe, at a public competition in Los Angeles and at Carpigiani Day, the first event with 100 gelato professionals competing at once. She added that more surprises are planned for the World Finals, especially in Europe and the United States.
• Valentina Sorgente, Exhibition Manager of Sigep Italian Exhibition Group, called artisan gelato an example of Italian excellence in a growing sector. She noted that Sigep China had just finished its second edition, and that the first Sigep Asia was about to open in Singapore on 26 to 28 June, while work was under way on a buyer programme for Sigep 2025.
• Giulia Rossi, Carpigiani Project Manager, said the past 13 years show artisans investing ever more in ingredient research, balancing techniques and a personal style, with the final aim of pleasing customers. She pointed to rising enrolment in advanced gelato training across Carpigiani Gelato University’s 24 campuses worldwide.

Gelato market data

These figures come from the Sigep Observatory, May 2024. In the five largest European markets (Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the UK), 2.2 billion servings of gelato were sold in 2023, and European consumption grew by 4.7% according to CREST-Circana data. Italy remained the leading market with 28% of European servings. Circana expected growth in 2024, with consumers treating gelato as an accessible everyday pleasure in an uncertain economy. Claudio Pica, president of FIEPET Confesercenti and secretary general of the Italian Association of Gelato Artisans (AIG), estimated Italian consumption could rise by 6% to as much as 12% in art cities with heavy tourist traffic.

Gelato Festival debuted in Florence in 2010, inspired by the first gelato recipe created by the architect Bernardo Buontalenti in 1559. It expanded across Italy, Europe and, from 2017, the United States, with 80 festivals held, before going worldwide with the Gelato Festival World Masters 2021, which ended in December 2021 and saw a record 3,500 gelato artisans judged by international juries. The latest four-year cycle began in October 2022 and has already recorded hundreds of events and thousands of registrations.

What this means for gelato makers in Australia

Growing demand and a competitive field reward gelato makers who keep refining their recipes and technique. If you want to build that skill set, Majors Group can connect you with Carpigiani Gelato University and help you choose artisan gelato machines and Rubicone ingredients to match your style in Australia.

Source: Carpigiani news. Rewritten for Australia by Majors Group.