Raghunandan Srinivas Kamath, the founder of Naturals Ice Cream, died on Friday, at the age of 75. He breathed his last at Mumbai's H N Reliance Foundation Hospital after a brief illness.
Here are some facts about Raghunandan Srinivas Kamath:
- Called the “Ice Cream Man of India”, Raghunandan Srinivas Kamath was the son of a mango vendor. Mr Kamath grew up assisting his father in a small village of Mangalore.
- At the age of 14, Mr Kamath left his studies and joined his brother's restaurant, with a dream of creating handcrafted ice cream made using real fruit pulp.
- With the same dream in his heart, Mr Kamath moved to Mumbai in 1984 and opened the first ice cream parlour in the suburbs of the Juhu scheme.
- Mr Kamath opened his first ice cream parlour with just six staff members and 12 flavours. Back then, it was called "Ice Cream of Juhu Scheme" by frequent customers.
- The demand for Natural Ice Cream kept growing and in 1994 Mr Kamath opened five more outlets. Currently, the Naturals Ice Cream has over 165 outlets across 15 cities.
It is worth noting that Mr Kamath, inspired by his mother's techniques, also developed innovative machines to streamline production and ensure consistency.
On Saturday, Naturals Ice Cream on its official X (formerly Twitter) page announced Mr Kamath's death. Sharing a picture of Mr Kamath, the brand wrote, “Our thoughts on the sad demise of our patron and founder of Naturals Ice Cream, Late (Shri) Raghunandan Kamath. Indeed a very sad and unfortunate day for us.”
As per the official site of Naturals Ice Cream, “Today, Naturals Ice Cream boasts of Rs. 300+ crore turnover, 165+ outlets across various cities in 15 different states in India, offering over 20 flavours at any given time and being one of the best in customer service."
Naturals' famous Tender Coconut flavour is listed in the Top 100 most iconic ice creams in the world by Taste Atlas, according to the company. Naturals Ice Cream was also included in India's top 10 most trusted brands in a survey conducted by KPMG in 2018.
