Mumbai: Raghunandan Kamath, the founder of Naturals Ice Cream, died on Friday after a brief illness, according to his company sources. He was 75 years old.
Kamath, who grew up helping his father sell mangoes, learnt everything there to know about picking ripe fruit, sorting and preserving them.
Later at the age 14 he quit studies to support his brother’s eatery.
He was still harbouring the idea of creating a handcrafted ice cream with fruit pulp someday.
In 1984, he moved to Mumbai and opened the first ice cream parlour with 12 flavours in the suburbs of Juhu scheme.
As he started with six staff members, the demand for ice cream kept growing and he opened five more outlets in 1994.
Now the brand has over 165 outlets across 15 cities.
Kamath developed innovative machines after having been inspired by his mother’s techniques, to streamline production.
"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," NDTV quoted the company as saying.