The shipment of almost 35,000 one-litre boxes of Planica tropical and chocolate flavours, sent on its way from the Koper port on Thursday, is expected to reach its destination within five weeks.

Named after the alpine valley that is home to Slovenia's ski jumping centre, the ice cream has been manufactured by Ljubljanske Mlekarne since 1974. Initially coming only as a family pack combining three colour chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavours into one, the brand has since been expanded to come in various shapes, sizes and flavours.

"At a time of global disruption to business due to the coronavirus pandemic, we are the more enthusiastic about the deals such as this one," the Ljubljana-based dairy said.

The company deems the breakthrough the more important due to the excess supply of milk throughout Europe as a result of the fallout from the pandemic. The dairy said its milk sales in China were doing well with the customers there associating Slovenian dairy products with high quality.

Ljubljanske Mlekarne buys more than 500,000 litres of milk from Slovenian dairy farms every day, which represents a third of Slovenian raw milk production. Slovenia produces 30% more milk than it consumes.