Pure Ice Cream, the owner of the Kwality brand, is investing in a new factory in Dubai in a project expected to create around 300 jobs.
The company, which is owned by the Graviss Group in India, is ploughing Dh80m ($21.7m) into the ice-cream facility located within the food and beverage zone of the Dubai Industrial City, a complex that got off the ground in 2004.
Sitting on a 246,000 square-foot plot, the plant will cover an area of 160,000 sq. ft. and will increase Pure Ice Cream’s annual production capacity by 300% to 30 million litres. It is expected to be up and running in 2026.
Sharjah-headquartered Pure Ice Cream, which also produces frozen vegetables, paneer and the Kwality brand of packaged rice, said the factory will serve the local ice-cream market and the wider Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), along with the US, Africa and South-east Asia.
Pure Ice Cream said the Kwality ice-cream brand is regarded as the “flagship” in its category in the UAE, where it is distributed to more than 8,000 retailers. Tanzania and Ethiopia were named as current destinations in Africa.
Vikram Seth, the managing director of Pure Ice Cream, said the business hub is ideally located next to major transport networks.
“The launch of this facility represents a key milestone for Pure Ice Cream and reflects our dedication to enhancing the UAE’s position as a hub for food and beverage innovation,” Seth added in a statement.
“This strategic positioning will allow us to capitalise on new business opportunities and manage larger production volumes efficiently.”
The Kwality ice-cream name started life in India in the early 1960s. It later became Kwality Wall’s when FMCG giant Unilever acquired the brand in India and that of UK-based Wall’s.
Kwality Wall’s now sits within the parent company’s Hindustan Unilever business in India. However, the brand is part of a review by Unilever and is expected to be included in a sale of the global ice-cream business subject to a final decision due by the end of next year.
In the UAE and elsewhere, the Kwality brand is owned by Pure Ice Cream, which launched the line in 1977 with its first dedicated ice-cream factory. The company said it is also the largest private-label supplier of ice cream in the GCC.
Dubai Industrial City is owned by the Tecom Group and houses more than 300 factories operated by the likes of Unilever and A.P. Moller, which owns the Maersk shipping company.
Saud Abu Alshawareb, the executive vice president of Tecom, said: “A self-sustaining F&B sector is not an aspiration but a non-negotiable necessity for future economies.
“The launch of Pure Ice Cream's facility at Dubai Industrial City offers a powerful proof point of these visions in action, and its addition to our district's thriving F&B zone is a tangible manifestation of the UAE's National Food Security Strategy 2051.”
