Naturals Ice Cream: Meet Raghunandan Kamath, a fruit vendor's son who built a Rs 300-crore empire
Thousands of people adore the fresh fruit Natural ice cream, all thanks to Mulky Raghunandan Srinivas Kamath, the entrepreneur who helmed this, all the way back in 1984
The brain behind Naturals Ice Cream, Raghunandan Kamath used his mother's hacks and father's fruit expertise to build an iconic Indian brand. Twitter.
In 21st century, when everything has a fake equivalent, we have a strong need for natural and organic products. And the Naturals Ice Cream has successfully taken care of this requirement. Naturals claim that their products do not contain any artificial preservative, flavour or stabiliser, hence justifying its name to the fullest. It has been ranked as one of India’s Top 10 brands for customer experience in a KPMG survey, offering an average of over 20 flavours at once at 135 locations throughout the nation. Naturals generated a turnover of 300 crores in the financial year 2020. Thousands of people adore the fresh fruit Naturals Ice Cream, all thanks to Mulky Raghunandan Srinivas Kamath, the entrepreneur who helmed this, all the way back in 1984. The son of a fruit vendor from Mulki, a village in Karnataka, is now the founder and director of an ice cream company worth 300 crores.
Like many ice cream brands, the Naturals also had a modest beginning but Mulky’s distinctive sense of flavours, his drive to achieve high standards, and commitment to maintaining their sanity helped the brand to carve out a special place in the market.
The journey for this multi-crore brand began in 1984 when Raghunandan Srinivas Kamath, the founder and chairman of Naturals Ice Cream, acquired a stake in his family’s “Gokul Ice Cream” business from his brother and opened a shop in Mumbai’s Juhu. During this, he gained a lot of knowledge about ice cream kinds while working at his brother’s restaurant. Additionally, R.S. Kamath had a wealth of knowledge about fruits because he was the son of a fruit vendor.
Naturals have purchased milk from a dairy in Nashik for the past three decades, and the fruits used their ice creams are sourced from regular suppliers throughout India. The fruits are delivered to their prestigious Kandivali factory, where the ice cream is made.
“ Naturals being an artisanal ice cream has grown substantially due to three ingredients – fruits, sugar and milk. As per our marketing tagline, Taste the Original, our brand focuses on original flavours such as Sitaphal, Tender Coconut etc. “ said Kamath while interacting with Better India.
The company offers various mouthwatering fruit flavours, including chikoo, jackfruit, litchi, black grape, fig, and watermelon. Some unusual flavours like cucumber, prasadam (meal devoured by worshippers), gajar halwa (carrot dessert), and tilgul (sesame candy laddus), have also been developed by the company.
Although the company has never used conventional marketing tactics, it places a lot of importance on user feedback, such as when it introduces new flavours. Even the pickle-flavoured mango was renamed “Wild Mango” at a customer’s request.