Chicecream different flavors in freezer-20220628

Chicecream is a Chinese premium ice cream company, known for its high prices and for being a home-grown Chinese luxury ice cream company as opposed to a Western import. Founded in 2018 in Shanghai, the company has focused on e-commerce and has become one of China's top-selling ice cream brands, growing in popularity partly with the help of

Internet celebrities An Internet celebrity, also referred to as an Internet personality, is an individual who has acquired or developed their fame and notability on the Internet. The growing popularity of social media provides a means for people to reach a large ...

in the Wanghong economy.

Brand identity

Chicecream is known for its high prices and is nicknamed the "

Hermes Hermes (; ) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quic ...

of ice cream". As of 2021, its

ice cream bar An ice cream bar is a frozen dessert featuring ice cream on a stick. The confection was patented in the US in the 1920s, with one invalidated in 1928. Description An ice cream bar is a frozen dessert on a stick. It features ice cream, disti ...

s usually sold for about 13–18 RMB each, though a particularly expensive cocoa powder popsicle called "Ecuador Pink" sold for 66 RMB. In contrast, most other ice cream brands in China sell for 2–8 RMB each. CEO and founder Lin Sheng attributes the company's high prices to the high cost of imported ingredients such as

yuzu Yuzu (''Citrus'' × ''junos'', from Japanese language, Japanese or ; ) is a citrus fruit and plant in the family Rutaceae of China, Chinese origin. Yuzu has been cultivated mainly in East Asia, though it has also recently been grown in New Z ...

. The company's brand identity relies on its status as a homegrown Chinese luxury ice cream company, in contrast to imported Western brands like

Häagen-Dazs Häagen-Dazs ( , ) is an American ice cream brand, established by Reuben and Rose Mattus in the Bronx, New York, in 1960, owned by Froneri, a joint venture between Nestlé and PAI Partners. Starting with only three flavors: vanilla, chocolat ...

and Magnum. The brand's Chinese name, (''Zhōng Xuē Gāo''), is a combination of the Chinese surnames Zhong, Xue, and

Gao Gao (or Gawgaw/Kawkaw) is a city in Mali and the capital of the Gao Region. The city is located on the River Niger, east-southeast of Timbuktu on the left bank at the junction with the Tilemsi valley. For much of its history Gao was an imp ...

as well as a pun: it is nearly homophonous with . The company advertises its products as healthy, saying that they are all-natural and low in sugar and fat. Data from e-commerce platforms indicates that Chicecream's main demographic is young people aged 26–37, especially women, followed by young people aged 18–25.

History

Chicecream was founded in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

on 14 March 2018. The founder and CEO Lin Sheng () is an entrepreneur who previously worked in advertising. The company's first six products were introduced on 20 May 2018. The company is a pioneer in the domestic premium ice cream industry in China: in the past, only foreign ice cream brands like

were seen as high-end, while domestic brands such as

Mengniu Inner Mongolia Mengniu Dairy (Group) Limited by Share Ltd. () is a Chinese manufacturing and distribution company of dairy products and ice cream. The company is headquartered in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia and manufactures dairy products under the '' ...

and Yili were seen as lower-end. Chicecream focused on online sales rather than sales in physical stores, and worked to get

internet celebrities An Internet celebrity, also referred to as an Internet personality, is an individual who has acquired or developed their fame and notability on the Internet. The growing popularity of social media provides a means for people to reach a large ...

to promote its products. One popular blogger, Li Jiaqi, recommended Chicecream in 2020. The brand grew rapidly in popularity and at one point became the most-searched product on

Xiaohongshu Xiaohongshu (XHS; zh, s=小红书, p=Xiǎohóngshū, l=little red book), known in English as RedNote, is a Chinese social networking and E-commerce in China, e-commerce platform. , 70% of the platform's users are reportedly born after 1990, a ...

. In 2019, Chicecream was fined by regulators in Shanghai for deceptive advertising. The company's advertisements falsely said that the ice cream did not contain any water and that it was made using imported Japanese tea leaves, among other inaccurate claims. In 2020, the company was affected by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. According to brand manager Huang Ying (), Chicecream's aged Irish cheese ice cream was unavailable for months because the cheese could not be imported due to COVID-related shipping disruption. However, Huang also said that the pandemic was good for sales, due to the increased popularity of online shopping. In May 2021, Chicecream raised 200 million RMB in Series A financing. In summer 2022, controversy erupted online around claims that Chicecream's products do not melt. On 25 June 2022, a user found that after leaving a Chicecream bar out at a temperature of for 50 minutes, it developed a thick, sticky texture but did not become watery or lose its shape. Users speculated that the ice cream did not melt due to

preservative A preservative is a substance or a chemical that is added to products such as food products, beverages, pharmaceutical drugs, paints, biological samples, cosmetics, wood, and many other products to prevent decomposition by microbial growth or ...

s, coagulants, or other additives, such as

carrageenan Carrageenans or carrageenins ( ; ) are a family of natural linear sulfation, sulfated polysaccharides. They are extracted from red algae, red edible seaweeds. Carrageenans are widely used in the food industry, for their gelling, thickening, an ...

. On 5 July, a

viral video Viral videos are video, videos that become popular through viral phenomenon, a viral process of Internet sharing, primarily through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhon ...

showed that a salted coconut flavored Chicecream bar did not melt even under extreme heat, leading viewers to worry about the contents of Chicecream's ice cream and whether it is safe to eat. In response, the company said that the product's physical behavior is because it contains a high concentration of solid particles and relatively little water. The company said that its products satisfy regulatory standards, including national standard GB/T 31119-2014, which regulates frozen desserts. Chicecream also said that it would cooperate in an investigation, and that it believed applying heat to ice cream was not a scientific way to test its quality.

Products

Chicecream produces more than ten flavors of ice cream, including: * Ecuador pink (厄瓜多尔粉钻) * Ghana black gold (加纳黑金) * Hand-crafted jasmine (手煮茉莉) * Aged Irish cheese (爱尔兰陈年干酪) * Salted coconut (海盐椰椰) * Semi-opportunism (半巧主义) * Velvet cocoa (丝绒可可) Chicecream

s resemble the shape of a Chinese roof tile, and the top of each bar is shaped like the

Chinese character Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only on ...

回 ("return"). In collaboration with skincare company Xiaoxiandun (小仙炖), Chicecream introduced an ice cream product made with birds' nests, which are traditionally believed to be good for the skin. Outside of frozen desserts, Chicecream also sells other products, including high-end dumplings and cakes.

Stores

Though the company has focused primarily on e-commerce, it also has brick-and-mortar stores in cities including

Chengdu Chengdu; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ; Chinese postal romanization, previously Romanization of Chinese, romanized as Chengtu. is the capital city of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a ...

Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...

, and

Shenzhen Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...

References

External links