However, life has not been all sweet for Kamath, who hails from Mulki, a blink-and-miss village in the Puttur taluka of Mangalore in Karnataka.
His father barely earned 100 rupees a month from leasing trees seasonally and selling the fruit. Neither this meagre income nor the rice and vegetables grown on the small patch of land the family owned were enough to feed Kamath and his six older siblings.
Having curry was a luxury; coffee made with jaggery and pieces of ripe jackfruit plucked freely off the village trees were all Kamath's mother could offer her children as snacks.
The children would routinely roam around bare-bodied. "In our village that implied one was yet to take a bath and put on fresh clothes," Kamath, now 62, recalls.
"Under this pretext we hid the fact that we did not have enough clothes. I wore sandals for the first time when I came to Mumbai at the age of fifteen."
Decades ago, in the early 70s, much before the journey of Natural Ice Creams began, Kamath moved with his parents and other family members to Mumbai.
The family lived in a 12 by 12 foot room (kholi) in a chawl at Juhu Koliwada. Being the youngest, Kamath had to sleep under a cot.
Nobody took his business idea seriously, but Kamath waited for the right time and opportunity. When the brother offered him his share in the family inheritance, Kamath bargained for a one-time sum of one lakh rupees instead of smaller monthly pay-outs.With just six staff members including himself and his wife, he started making 10 to 15 kg of around 10 varieties of natural ice creams and managed to sell 1,000 cups on the first weekend.
It wasn't long before word of mouth made Natural Ice Cream a destination for locals and tourists alike.
At the end of the second year, Kamath's turnover was 14 lakh rupees and it grew year on year, crossing Rs. 40 crore in 2010-2011. In 25 years, he had expanded to 50 outlets.
Today he owns a fully equipped state-of-the-art factory on 25,000 square feet in Charkop, Kandivali West.
His wife Annapurna and two sons Srinivas and Siddhant are the other directors in the company, which has more than 125 exclusive company or franchise outlets across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Delhi NCR and Rajasthan, catering to a loyal and burgeoning customer base.
Every day, as many as 125 staff members contribute to the production of 20 tonnes of ice creams from the range of 100 Natural Ice Cream flavours using natural pulp from about 60 varieties of fruits as well as dry fruits.
They make around 30 varieties every day, varying the flavours daily, including everything from custard apple, chikoo, tender coconut and papaya, to pineapple, banana, peach, mango, and all types of berries, besides more exotic varieties such as caramel walnut, apple cinnamon, pina colada, pomegranate, kiwi lime, turmeric, cucumber, prasadam, gajar halwa, and tilgul.
http://www.theweekendleader.com/Success/2412/fruity-growth.html
Posted by: Ravi Narasimhan <ravi.narasimhan.in@gmail.com>
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