What is your favourite flavour of Naturals Ice Cream?

Is it the popular tender coconut, sitaphal (custard apple), roasted almond, or the more seasonal jackfruit, watermelon, litchi, or the fusion malai khurma?

While you fantasise over all your favourite ice cream flavours, here’s how it all began.

The founder of Naturals, Raghunandan Srinivas Kamath, grew up in Mangaluru’s Puttur taluk.

Kamath didn’t see much promise in education back then, so he frequently joined his father in the fields to sell fruits at the market. It was during this time that he learned to identify high-quality, ripe fruits.

He was only 14 when his family moved to Mumbai.

But after failing to clear his boards twice, he was asked to join his eldest brother — who was then running a South Indian eatery ‘Gokul Refreshments’ — to sell their homemade ice cream.

Being the son of a fruit seller, Kamath had recognised the versatility and worth of fruits much earlier in life, and wanted to go beyond the usual chocolate and vanilla flavours to make ice cream with real fruit pulp — but his idea was not entertained.

Incidentally, around the same time, the brothers split and a share of the restaurant went to Kamath, who then went on to finally bring his dream to reality.

Soon, in 1984, he introduced the country to his original fruit ice cream. But before the outlet became synonymous with ice cream, the pav bhaji he served was the standout!

His tiny 200-sq-ft shop in Juhu’s Koliwada area saw people flocking to get a taste of the delicious Mumbai staple, where Kamath introduced the idea of having something cold following a hot meal, thus serving his fruit ice cream to the customers.

Soon enough, the fruit ice cream took centre stage, and his stall was referred to as “the one with the ice cream”. And he went on to clock a revenue of Rs 5 lakh in the first year itself.

While he started with just about 12 flavours, today Naturals Ice Cream has over 100 flavours and continues to add unique varieties.

The company has invented some unconventional flavours like cucumber, prasadam (food consumed by worshippers), gajar halwa (carrot dessert), and tilgul (sesame candy laddus).

Quality remains uncompromised in all the flavours, a credit to Kamath’s mother. Kamath says he grew up watching his mother earnestly prepare all the food. There was no room for “quick recipes” in the Kamath household, reflected in their brand today.

He also created a machine for deseeding fruits like sitaphal and jackfruit, inspired by his mother’s method. He added a blower to the milk boiler to prevent carbonisation, drawing from his mother’s habit of blowing on boiling milk.

This daring businessman didn’t use “MBA-level strategies”. He took a huge risk entering a niche segment, such as the ice cream market, which was largely dominated by a handful of brands, but it paid off and how!

The single ice cream parlour has grown into over 160 outlets across the country, offering an average of over 20 flavours at a given time.

The brand even has a ‘Friday Funday Flavours’ concept where there is a new flavour every Friday! Their website reads, “52 flavours for 52 weeks in a year to keep things constantly exciting.”

“You don’t have to wait for the ‘big idea’. It is important to start and build upon the small ideas to create the biggest wins,” Kamath tells The Better India.