Mangaluru : Mulki Raghunandan Srinivas Kamath, the founder of Natural Ice Cream, passed away at a private hospital in Mumbai on May 17. He was 70.

Raghunandan hailed from a poor family in Mulki and his father was a fruits merchant. Kamath who did not show keen interest in studies, joined hands with his father and later left for Mumbai at the age of 14.

There he worked in his elder brother’s hotel for some time and then founded his own Natural Ice Cream in Mumbai in 1984. Today the firm has 156 outlets across the nation and has employed thousands of people.

He survived by his wife and two sons.