MUMBAI: Raghunandan Srinivas Kamath, the founder of Naturals icecream passed away on Friday night at HN Reliance Foundation Hospital. His last rites were performed on Saturday evening at Amboli, Andheri West. He was known as the "ice cream man of India."
Born to a mango vendor in a village in Mangalore, Kamath started his business journey by helping his father in running his business. After dropping out of school at the age of 14, Kamath started working at his brother's restaurant, from where he got the idea of adding fruit flavours to ice creams.
His first ice cream parlour was launched in 1984 in Mumbai, with six staff, featuring around 12 flavours. His ice cream became a huge success in Mumbai, which prompted him to start five new outlets in Mumbai by 1994. Now Natural Ice Creams have 165 outlets in 15 cities in India.