Mumbai based MD Food Product (Cremeitalia) has raised an amount of US$ 600,000 funding from Mumbai based B L Taparia Family Office (Venktesh Investment & Trading). This marks the first round of external investors for MD Food Product, while having received initial funding from family and friends in the last 3 years.

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.

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 Flavor Provola.

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. The high-quality products of Cremeitalia have earned them premium shelf space with food-retailers such Godrej Nature’s Basket, Foodhall, apart from premium local retail outlets in major cities of the country. Cremeitalia products are also available on online platforms such as Big-Basket, Swiggy-Instamart, Meatigo and the Nature Store. The company is aggressively tying up with more e-tailers to make their products easily accessible and available pan-India.

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. Cremeitalia has ambitious plans of launching new products which the founders believe will disrupt the retail consumers. With this funding, Cremeitalia will be in the position to on-board new HORECA as well as Retail clients and cater to their recurring demand of large quantities of gourmet cheese products.

Venktesh Investment & Trading is the family office of Bajrang Lal Taparia, one of the promoters of the listed plastics packaging major The Supreme Industries Limited. The investment firm is actively looking at investment opportunities with a niche in select focus segments and businesses with ability to scale with pace.

One of the founders, Prateek Anil Mittal expressed, “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. Since our inception, we were blessed to have support from our family and friends who believed in our vision by investing in us in our early days. The investment from Venktesh Investment & Trading only affirms our belief and vision to make gourmet and fresh cheese products a daily consumption item, but also provides us the required boost in reaching our goal faster and more efficiently. We look forward to making Cremeitalia a household name when it comes to the gourmet and fresh cheese category.”

The other founder, Rajas Dhote adds, “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.”

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