A city-based dairy company is looking to form an Italian collaboration to make premium ice-cream and frozen desserts such as gelato and sorbet in Bengal.

Rainbow Dairy Food Product, a home grown MSME player operating a manufacturing unit out of Naihati in North 24 Parganas and selling ice cream under the Milkberry brand, will use an Italian business connect platform Bizdev to tie up technology, recipe and equity for a joint venture.

“I personally attended Bengal chief minister’s business meetings in Milan as part of the Italian business team and our interest in this part of India grew. We are already in talks with a couple of Italian companies and our job will be to identify a suitable partner for Milkberry and take the joint venture to its logical conclusion,” said Jean-Claude Morel, partner Bizdev.

Bizdev helps Italian companies that seek to expand in international markets. Emerging markets such as India, Brazil, Indonesia and south east Asian countries are among the focus regions for Bizdev.

Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had visited Germany and Italy last month in a bid to attract investment in the state ahead of the state’s flagship summit in February next year.

“We are an MSME player operating out of Bengal. Our current plant has a capacity of 800 litres/hour and we have a presence in the eastern and north-eastern states, offering more than 40 variants and flavours.

“The plan is to scale up business, add more flavours, improve packaging and expand reach with an Italian partner and brands,” said Siddhartha Sankar Ghosh, managing partner, Rainbow Dairy Food Product.

He added that the joint venture would help the firm to foray into the premium segment and have at least 2-3 exclusive brands under its fold. The company also hopes for equity participation from the foreign partner in the joint venture.