Although the rags to riches stories are just byproducts of the fallacious ‘American Dream’, the story of the founder of India’s Natural Ice cream is inspiring to say the least. Mulky Raghunandan Srinivas Kamath was the son of a fruit vendor from a village in Karnataka. A few decades ago, he travelled to Mumbai, and now heads the ‘Naturals’ ice cream chain with Rs 300 crore turnover. Born in Karnataka’s Mulki, in 1954, he was the youngest of seven children and his family barely scraped through with his father’s meagre earnings, according to a report by India Times. When Kamath was fifteen, his family moved to Mumbai to help out at his brother’s eatery. They lived in a Juhu ‘chawl’ in the city. According to the report, Kamath failed to clear his board exams twice, after which, at his brother’s eatery, he decided to try making ice cream with natural fruit pulp. That was how the unique flavours of Natural ice creams started out, in an unprecedented venture by Kamath to stray away from usual ice cream flavours like chocolate and vanilla.
It was in 1984 that the first Natural Ice Cream store was opened, with just four staff members and ten ice cream flavours, at Juhu, Vile Parle, in Mumbai. The flavours were simple and Kamath used only basic ingredients to make them, like fruit, sugar and milk. The ice creams soon became a smash hit and Kamath no longer had to sell Pav Bhaji like he used to. The India Times report states that now, there are 135 Natural Ice Cream outlets in different cities, and in 2020, the brand had a turnover of Rs 300 crore.
“I didn’t have to spend a single penny on advertising. It was mostly through word of mouth,” the report quoted Kamath. Naturals ice creams have been endorsed on various platforms by the likes of Amitabh Bachchan and Dilip Kumar.
Natural Ice cream features some unconventional flavours derived from lesser-known fruits like chikoos, litchis, jackfruit. Vivian Richards once said in an interview that he liked their sapodilla and custard apple flavours.
According to an Economic Times report, Kamath once said, “Not all these flavours sell well but it increases your brand value. People realise you know about fruits better than anyone else. We make limited stock of a lot of these flavours, as they’re not hot favourites. But it’s like those art movies people do for awards. Not every flavour is ‘Dangal’".
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