Belgian Ysco becomes part of Gelato d'Italia

Davidson Kempner manages companies with a total value of approximately $37 billion. These companies operate in various sectors. For the ice activities, the fund has an ice investment platform, called Glacier.

Glacier's ambition is to become a global player in ice cream. The company Gelato d'Italia now has two factories of its own in Italy. The two from Ysco will be added to that, and perhaps more factories at a later time.

The acquisition price of Ysco is not (yet) being announced. With the four factories of Gelato d'Italia, a turnover of around $600 million per year (and more later) should be achieved. It wants to do this as a private label producer, with the unique strength of being able to bring new concepts (for new ice creams) to the market very quickly.
Ysco can produce around 200 million litres of ice cream per year, but it has not been reported how much Gelato d'Italia's existing factories can handle. Davidson Kempner bought the company in 2022 for €20 million from fellow investor IDeA Taste of Italy.

It seems logical that Ysco, under the wings of Gelato d'Italia, will continue to purchase dairy products from Milcobel, if only because one of the two factories is located on the Milcobel site in Langemark, but nothing has been reported about this.

For Milcobel, the decision of the competition authorities is important, because now the sales proceeds can come in (although the Belgian Competition Authority indicates that they are still checking the turnover thresholds). The cooperative has promised that loyal members can benefit from those proceeds.