Ice Cream Cup Sizes: What to Stock in a Shop

Ice cream cup sizes look like a detail until the first reorder

Tell us the format, the quantity and the delivery country, and the quotation comes back with the full specification attached. Optima Cup is the export brand of Elit Cup: the cups are produced, checked, packed and dispatched from one plant in Istanbul, plain or printed to your own artwork.

A gelato counter rarely chooses its cup on purpose. Somebody had a format in stock, the shop took it, and two years later the whole operation is built around that accident: the scoop weighs what it weighs because the cup holds what it holds, the spoons were bought to fit, the freezer shelf was measured for that carton. Ice cream cup sizes quietly set portion cost, counter speed and packaging spend at the same time, which is why the second order is a far harder conversation than the first one.

This guide is written for the person placing that order: a shop owner moving off cash-and-carry, a distributor adding a dessert line, an importer who needs to know what fits in a container before committing. Every figure below comes from the production specification of the two formats we run, not from a catalogue round-up.

The two formats a paper cup plant actually runs

Ice cream cup sizes come down to two working formats rather than the dozen a listing page suggests. In practice a line runs a small portion and a serving portion, and everything else is a variation on those two. The verified figures:

• 100 cc — 100 ml, 45 mm high, 85 mm across the rim, 72 mm at the base, 5.75 g per cup.
• 200 cc — 200 ml, 65 mm high, 90 mm across the rim, 72 mm at the base, 7.20 g per cup.

Both are formed from 255 g/m2 board with a 15 g/m2 polyethylene film on the inner face, both are packed 1,000 pieces per carton in sleeves of 50, and both travel under HS code 4823.69. Note the base: 72 mm on each. The two formats stand in the same holders and the same display trays, so a counter that keeps both is not running two sets of hardware.

The small format is a tasting and children's portion. Counters use it for sample scoops beside the display cabinet, hotels for buffet desserts, caterers when the job is to serve many people a little rather than a few people a lot. Buyers who ask for disposable ice cream cups in the smallest useful size almost always mean this one rather than a scaled-down tub. The 200 cc is the everyday selling portion: two scoops, or one generous soft-serve swirl, with room above the rim for sauce and toppings.

What the rim diameter settles before anything else

The rim is where the cup meets everything else in the operation: the scoop, the spoon, the topping and the lid. Five millimetres of difference between 85 and 90 mm sounds like nothing on paper and decides a surprising amount in service.

A wide, low cup lets a scoop sit visibly above the rim, which is what a display counter is selling. It also gives a spoon room to work without the customer digging at an angle. A narrow, deep cup hides the product and makes the last third awkward to eat. This is why the serving format was drawn at 65 mm high and 90 mm wide rather than the other way round; the same volume in a taller body would sell worse and eat slower.

The rim also decides the lid, and this is where most first orders go wrong. For the 200 cc there is a 93 mm dome lid, supplied on request. The 100 cc is supplied without a lid. If takeaway trade, delivery platforms or a supermarket shelf are anywhere in your plan, that single line changes which format you should be buying.

Ice cream cup sizes and the lid question: settle it in the enquiry, not after delivery

Lids are the most common reason a shipment of otherwise correct cups ends up unusable. A buyer orders cups from one source and lids from another, the two rim measurements were never compared, and the pallet sits in the store room. Ask for the rim diameter in millimetres and the matching lid in the same enquiry, so cup and lid are quoted together and travel in the same load. Where a customer wants ice cream tubs with lids for retail sale, say so at the enquiry stage: it decides the format, not the finish.

Cartons, cubic metres and what a container really takes

Packaging arithmetic is where ice cream cup sizes stop being abstract and start costing money. The carton figures for both formats:

• 200 cc — carton of 1,000 pieces, 445 x 365 x 670 mm, 7.50 kg, 0.109 m3. A 20 ft container takes 260 cartons, a 40 ft HQ takes 630, a truck 792.
• 100 cc — carton of 1,000 pieces, 445 x 365 x 610 mm, 6.00 kg, 0.099 m3. A 20 ft container takes 290 cartons, a 40 ft HQ takes 690, a truck 792.

Translate that into product: a 20 ft container of the serving format is 260,000 cups; the same box holds 290,000 of the small one. For an importer those two numbers, not the unit weight, are what decide whether a first shipment is a full container, a shared load or a truck. For a single shop they explain why buying by the pallet and buying by the carton are different businesses.

Storage follows the same figures. A carton is roughly two thirds of a metre tall and holds twenty sleeves; a shop that opens one sleeve a day is opening a carton every three weeks. Paper cups do not spoil, but they do take on ambient moisture and they do get crushed, so stock that turns slowly should sit sealed, off the floor and away from the freezer's condensation, not in the corner where the boxes get leaned on.

Board, film and the cold load

Frozen dessert is a gentler load than hot coffee in one respect and a harder one in another. There is no heat to soften the wall, but there is condensation on the outside, a spoon scraping the inside and, in delivery use, a slow thaw. That is carried by two things: the 255 g/m2 board, which gives the wall its rigidity, and the 15 g/m2 polyethylene film on the inner face, which keeps moisture out of the fibre.

The practical lesson for a buyer is to specify the film rather than argue about paper weight. A heavier board in a cup with a thin or unevenly applied coating still goes soft at the base; a correctly coated cup at 255 g/m2 does not. When you compare offers, compare board grammage and coating weight as two separate lines. Frozen yogurt cups sold with wet toppings are the case where this shows up fastest, because syrup sits against the wall for the whole time the customer is eating.

Printing changes how many sizes you can afford

Both ice cream cup sizes can be printed offset in CMYK. Printing is what turns a cup into signage that a customer carries down the street, and it is also what makes running many sizes expensive: every printed format is its own set-up and its own artwork. Most counters resolve this the same way, printing the format they sell most and keeping the second one plain, or printing both in a single colour scheme so the artwork is prepared once.

Decide this before you fix quantities. A printed run is committed stock; a plain run is not. If a menu is likely to change, print the format that will outlive the change.

Sizing the order without guessing

The honest method takes ten minutes and no market research. Count how many sleeves the counter opens in a normal week, not a peak one. Fifty pieces to a sleeve, twenty sleeves to a carton, so weekly sleeves divided by twenty gives cartons per week. Multiply by the number of weeks you are willing to hold and you have the order, with the seasonal peak added on top as a separate line rather than folded into the average.

Two adjustments matter. Small portions move in bursts, because tasting scoops rise with foot traffic rather than with sales, so a shop that samples aggressively will burn through the 100 cc faster than its receipts suggest. And a lid decision changes consumption: once takeaway is on the menu, the serving format grows and the small one shrinks. Bring both numbers to the enquiry; a quotation built on real weekly usage is worth more than one built on a round figure someone liked.

What to send us, and what comes back

If you are still comparing ice cream cup sizes for a new counter, the enquiry that gets a usable answer is short. Name the format or formats, say whether you need the lid, give the quantity in cartons or pieces, the delivery country and whether the cups are plain or printed. If you are still deciding between the two, say what you sell and we will say which one fits.

You can look at the specifications first: the 200 cc paper ice cream cup and the 100 cc format both carry their full dimensions, or see the whole ice cream cup range. When you know what you need, the quotation form takes the details and we come back with cup, lid, carton and loading figures in one document.