The Magnum Ice Cream Company opened a 13,000 sq ft research, design and innovation centre in Whitefield, Bengaluru, in July 2026. The site has a lab and a digital pilot plant and handles product and process development, packaging, sensory testing, regulatory checks and cold chain validation. The company later opened a business solutions centre in Pune.
The Magnum Ice Cream Company is headquartered in Amsterdam and began trading in December 2025 on Euronext Amsterdam, the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange after its demerger from Unilever. It reported revenue of €7.9 billion for 2025 and has a global team of about 16,500, with products sold in around 80 markets. In India it operates through Kwality Wall’s (India) Limited, whose business goes back more than seven decades.
What the centre does
The 13,000 sq ft Research, Design and Innovation Centre in Whitefield opened in July 2026. It has a laboratory and a digitally enabled pilot plant, with facilities for ice cream making, packaging and sensory testing, cold chain and climate testing, 3D packaging prototypes and transport simulations. Its work covers product and process development, packaging, consumer technical insight and regulatory assessment for cups, sticks, cones, kulfi and premium ice cream cakes.
The centre serves brands including Kwality Wall’s, Cornetto and Magnum, and works alongside the company’s Global Design Centre in Colworth in the UK and its regional innovation hub in Istanbul. By September 2026 the company had also opened a 67,000 sq ft capability centre in Pune covering finance, procurement, supply chain, marketing and master data, part of a proposed ₹900 crore investment in Maharashtra.
Why Bengaluru
The company described Bengaluru as India’s technology hub, with strong food science, supplier and startup ecosystems. It also called India one of the world’s most exciting ice cream markets, with fast changing tastes and occasions, and pointed to the local knowledge built up through Kwality Wall’s. It said the centre should speed up experimentation, testing and commercialisation of new products and cut the time needed to bring ideas to market.
What it signals
Putting research and pilot production in India suggests the company wants products shaped around local tastes and climate, and a shorter path from idea to shelf. Taken together with the Pune centre, it shows a newly independent company building its own operating base in India for both product work and business services, rather than relying on structures inherited from its former parent.
At a glance
- Home country: Netherlands
- Sector: Retail and Consumer
- City: Bengaluru
- Date: July 2026
- Status: Operational
- Set-up partner: Not disclosed
- Focus: Engineering and R&D
Source: The Magnum Ice Cream Company opens Bengaluru R&D centre to accelerate ice cream innovation in India
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