The man behind a socially responsible ice cream company on the East Coast has plans to create a socially responsible apparel company on the West Coast.

Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., is scouting downtown L.A for a large facility that would house a “sweat-free” clothing company employing workers who would share in the company’s profits.

The venture is being backed by Cohen’s Hot Fudge Venture Fund Inc., started by Cohen after Ben & Jerry’s was sold to British-Dutch consumer products group Unilever last year for $326 million.

As part of the deal, Unilever provided the $5 million to establish Hot Fudge, which is headed by Cohen; Pierre Ferrari, a member of the Ben & Jerry’s board and a one-time candidate to head the ice cream company; and Terry Mollner, an East Coast consultant and lecturer on worker cooperatives.

Hot Fudge is investing in businesses and non-profits that employ minorities and the needy in jobs that pay $10 to $15 an hour.

The fund so far has spent $500,000 for an inner-city bakery in Memphis, Tenn., to train bakers and invested in a chocolate processing factory that buys only chocolate produced at Central American and African plantations that pay a living wage and are believed to treat their employees fairly.

Under Ferrari’s direction, the venture fund is actively seeking a partner from among the L.A. garment manufacturing community, though none has yet been identified. Hot Fudge will take an equity position in the new venture with an initial investment of $1 million.

Ferrari said the aim is to build a business with $25 million in sales within three years.

“We’re going to target selling our products in the college market and union market, with the reputation that these products are made in a shop that is not only where the workers are well treated but will have an ownership stake in the business,” he said. “We think our prices are going to be competitive.”

While the garment industry is happy to see Cohen and his colleagues invest in a new apparel company, they take issue with their criticism that there are a host of sweatshop problems generated by local apparel companies.

“Let me set the record straight,” said Ron Perilman, president of City Girl, a line of women’s better wear carried by Nordstrom and Dilliard’s department stores. “There are a lot of people in town who make beautiful apparel products and make it above board.”