On January 16, 2006, a Chinese company named Baxy Ice Cream set the world record in Beijing for the largest ice cream cake ever made - the cake weighed several tons and was put together by a score of Chinese ice cream technicians working for less than one hour to complete their task. The record was previously held by a US company named Carvel. I saw an announcement of the new record on network TV causing me to reflect upon a childhood guilt trip - "You have to eat everything on your plate because there are children starving in China."My knowledge of Chinese culture, industrialization, and politics is inadequate and slanted. Even today while I sift through statistics and video that crisply measure the commercial march of China I hear the echoing refrain that prompted me to eat my vegetables. This lingering verse haunts many of us cerebral minions to "push the last pea" that we may free ourselves from our imposed anxiety disorder.
After doing some research I have come to learn that China is generally viewed as the largest growth market on the planet for all things dairy. I did this research trying to form an opinion as to whether the new record was a cultural signal or a government-designed publicity postcard (see "The Rapid Rise of China's Dairy Sector", Iowa State University, May 2005:
http://www.card.iastate.edu/publications/DBS/PDFFiles/05wp394.pdf). The research suggests to me that the record was a cultural signal.
The ratio of US-to-Chinese per capita ice cream consumption is currently about 10-to-1. However, Chinese consumption of ice cream is growing at a rate of 10% per year. All other things held equal the Chinese will equal our per capita consumption in a little over 7 years. I am now getting nervous. I am starting to feel smothered.
Had it been the world's largest military tank or an ICBM I would not have felt as negatively impacted. I can understand these things, I have a better sense of how to measure them...I have lived with them longer. They protect our freedom to design and build the world's largest ice cream cake. However....China holds the record now....how do I measure the meaning of this?
I am thinking about this because in my judgment there are few examples of cultural and industrial redirect so poignant as Baxy's ascension to the planetary ice cream throne. I believe there is a high degree of correlation between current ice cream consumption trends and prospective energy consumption trends (this has some statistical validity based on a sample of twelve countries where I could obtain good data).
I am now shocked into an irreversible belief that China's industrial needs are going to push the entire energy industry to unprecedented performance and output requirements. I also believe these factors are going to push the industry to unprecedented capital spending levels and that IT will benefit enormously from this push. While the investor in me is excited by this prospect I have an unresolved nervousness that my children's adult lives will be remarkably different than my own.
