Research Paper on:
Europe's Ice Cream Market

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
in the thirteenth century the well known explorer, Marco Polo brought back a new recipe from China and it was taken yup by the Europeans, being more readily available and  by the sixteenth century it spread from Italy to France with Catherine De Medici of Florence when she went to marry Henry II (HB, 2002). However, the market today  is very different technology and consumerism have changed a former luxury into an everyday commodity that is acceptable to be eaten as a treat, a dessert or even a plain  snack. This is a change in the culture of the ice-cream industry especially in Europe, that companies such as Unilever, Mars and Nestle have all benefited from. They have all  found the market to be very competitive, and when we consider the way in which the market is structured and how they compete we can also appreciate why it is  likely to remain very competitive. The ice-cream market is very competitive, if we consider Europe there is a fragmented market, with some countries have very different practices from other,  for example in the Finland Sweden and Denmark there are very high percentage rates for the take home market (Ice Cream Reporter, 2000).Whereas countries such as Greece have a much  lower take home percentage (Ice Cream Reporter, 2000). There are also different growth rates for the industry in the different countries, with countries such as the UK, France, the Netherlands,  Belgium and Denmark showing the high growth rates in the market with an increase of between 2% - 4% per annum in 1998 (Ice Cream Reporter, 2000). This indicates the  wide range of scenarios that the ice cream manufacturers have to develop a marketing and competitive stagy in order to deal with. Some markets are more mature that others, some