Gourmet cheese brand Cremeitalia raises USD 600,000 funding from B L Taparia Family Office

Mumbai based MD Food Product Limited (Cremeitalia) has raised an amount of USD 600,000 funding from Mumbai based B L Taparia Family Office (Venktesh Investment & Trading Private Limited).

This marks the first round of external investors for MD Food Product Private Limited, while having received initial funding from family and friends in the last 3 years.

“We started off small, took small steps, did the right things at the right time, navigated the challenging pandemic times and survived, and built a fundamentally strong business so far. We look forward to making Cremeitalia a household name when it comes to gourmet and fresh cheese category,” shared Prateek Anil Mittal, Co-Founder at Cremeitalia.

From product segment perspective, Cremeitalia focuses on natural, fresh and non-processed cheese in the market with important characteristics such as natural & high-quality ingredients, competitive pricing, gluten free and easy usage.

The current product portfolio includes the following products Bocconcini, Burrata, Cream Cheese, Cheddar, Cherry Mozzarella, Buffalo Mozzarella, Fiordilatte Pizza, Stracciatella, Ricotta, Mascarpone, Sour cream, Scamorza and Flavour Provola

In 2016, the two founders, Prateek Anil Mittal and Rajas Kishore Dhote, came together to follow their common passion – create a gourmet cheese company and brand to serve consumers with fresh and naturally made cheese and not a processed product which includes a bunch of ‘enhancers’ and ‘preservatives’. The founders started research on their venture in the last quarter of 2016, and launched the “Cremeitalia” brand of cheese products and started with 4 products in December 2018. Cremeitalia was conceptualized with an armory of techniques from the best in this field – the Europeans. Armed with their know-how, recipes and technology, Cremeitalia aims to ensure that our country receives the standard of fresh cheese it deserves.

Cremeitalia has been successfully serving the HORECA (Hotels, Restaurants and Catering) clients and have been preferred suppliers to some of the premium pizza chains, luxury hotels, stand-alone restaurants, shipping lines and flight kitchens, amongst others. Cremeitalia has catered to more than 150 clients so far.

On the retail side, the Cremeitalia’s products are available in 18 cities across more than 200 stores.

With this fund raise, the company plans to deploy this capital towards new product launches, entering new markets (Tier 2 and 3 cities), retail expansion from the current 242 stores to 500+, expansion of current manufacturing capacities by 4-5x, marketing and branding initiatives across multiple online stores and also performance marketing in order to grow the online presence.

“The confidence bestowed upon us by our incoming investors only adds fuel to our passion to go big and go wide. This investment will help us strengthen our manufacturing processes and standards to a different level which will help us go closer to our dream of being a significant national player in the segment. With our investors’ support and value-add, we are looking forward to build Cremeitalia as the most preferred brand in the gourmet and fresh cheese segment,” added Dhote.

Senior investment banker and corporate finance professional, Harshal Kamdar advised MD Food Product Private Limited on this fund raise.