Case Study: The Ice Cream Of Juhu Scheme

Introduction

“The Ice Cream of Juhu Scheme” – an ice cream parlour that started as an off shoot of a restaurant in 1984, has now gone on to become synonymous with ice cream in Mumbai. If it is ice cream, it has to be Naturals. With fresh fruit flavours, unique taste, easy on the pocket and outlets in prime locations – Naturals has created a brand identity which is very difficult to compete with. It has an ever growing and loyal customer base. Naturals is more or less the benchmark for every ice cream that a person consumes after eating a naturals ice cream. After all, it may be an ice cream, but it is not Naturals; and that makes all the difference.

The Indian Ice Cream Industry that stands at 4,500 crore as of 2013 and is pegged to reach

3 lakhs, assistance from his wife and three staff members, R.S. Kamath opened his first outlet in Juhu. Rewinding a bit, R.S. Kamath and his brother started off with a small restaurant called Gokul Refreshments from where they used to even sell ice-creams in the evening. As time passed, R. S. Kamath gauging the popularity of ice-creams went ahead to open an exclusive ice-cream shop of 400 sq.ft at Juhu in Mumbai. He named it as Natural Ice-cream, keeping in mind the concept that the ice-creams were prepared from only natural ingredients ranging from milk, fruits to dry-fruits.

The brand became very popular with the local crowd in that area and was an instant hit. Eventually, it gained so much popularity that people from all over Mumbai would visit the store to enjoy all-natural ice-cream preparations from Natural Ice-cream.

Well versed with the skill of making ice cream the traditional way, he started the business by embellishing his ice cream with fruit. A few months after the outlet opened, he introduced 15 new fruit flavours, of which Sitafal became an instant hit. Once the idea of combining traditional ice creams with fruits proved successful, he decided to get the best seasonal fruits and hence travelled across the state to procure them. Although he had immediate success through his products, the products were priced for a reasonable amount and lower than the other established

After a few months, another unit was set at Mira Road but owing to logistical problems, it was shifted to a huge 22,000 sq.ft factory at Charkop. Currently, the company has a long list of franchisees waiting to partner with them across India and going by the principles and ethics the company follows, it is not going to be an easy wait for all of them. The philosophy of Natural Ice cream is to find the finest and purest ingredients for making ice cream. This way of doing business is not only demanding but also uncommon. This is why Natural ice cream epitomises the purest and finest ice cream in