Desserts

The range of international desserts is vast, including sweet baked goods and chilled and frozen desserts of all types. Sweet baked goods include cookies, biscotti, cakes (ranging from pound cakes to liqueur-flavored cakes), fruit breads, and various pastries, including seasonal pastries (such as Italian panettone or German stolen) and tiny pastries such as petits fours and rugulach. Chilled desserts include puddings, mousses, flans, and cheesecakes.

Frozen desserts come in many forms, including ice cream, frozen custard, sherbet, sorbet, water ice, gelato, frozen yogurt, and frozen novelties.

Desserts cater to our impulse for indulgence, such that even nutrition- and weight-conscious consumers often find themselves craving rich, fattening desserts. The power of indulgence as a consumer impulse is discernible in the ice cream market, where superpremium ice creams are often the fastest-growing product segment.

Thousands of marketers compete in the dessert market. They range from artisans that make and sell a single type of dessert in a single shop to large international conglomerates whose products are available in large food retailers in nearly every nation. The market also plays host to a multitude of imported products.