Natural- Origins

1984- Fell out with brothers, opted out of Gokuls

On his own, focus on traditionally made ice creams
Completely natural, no artificial flavours or preservatives
Industrial ice creams- 2 key players- Kwality & Vadilal
Investment- Rs 3L (Settlement+ Own+ friends), Juhu
outlet
"Mumbai gives everyone a chance, so I was not scared
to experiment here. I hired 3 people and insisted my just
married wife also join me in the business. I did not
spend too much doing up the interiors; I kept my outlet
simple. I had faith that my products would speak for
me.
eligibilty

Must be an outright corner shop / facing the main road
Carpet area should range from 750 to 1200 sq ft
Must be an exclusive Natural ice cream parlour; no shop-in-shop concept or cross
branding format will be considered
Space for car parking should be available
An investment of Rs 12 - 20 lacs required on the shop (includes interiors & equipments)
Prospective franchise should comply with Food & Beverage background
Prospective shop / location should be at least 5-7 kms away from our existing outlet
Franchise holder should procure all statutory requirements (Food license, Shop &
Establishment license etc.)
No deposits or franchise fees are required
Ice cream insights
Whenever Indians wanted to
embellish a seasonal fruit, they often
poured milk on it. Why not do the
opposite, embellish my traditional
milky ice cream with fruit? I knew
about fruit, and it was easy for me to
choose the best ones as my father
dealt in fresh seasonal fruits and had
taught me about the fruit trade- how
to check fruit ripeness, where to get
quality fruits. So I decided to add
slivers of whichever fruit the customer
asked for, to my traditional, natural ice
cream, in effect, kulfi + fruit. Thus the
brand Natural was born.



Spreading sweetness
1994, decade of success, expansion
Childhood friend, Girish Mallya (SBI) joined
"The customer is a good teacher. Some of my customers would give
suggestions about flavours, even tell me how people are getting
innovative with fruits and ice creams in places like Africa and
Singapore. I took all the suggestions seriously.


Manufacturing sweetness
Traditional ice cream making- manual, slow &
laborious
3 steps- Boil milk in a kadai, make rabri and cool it
TQT method- taste, quality and traditional method
No stabilisers or artificial colours
Challenge- consistency, taste
Resistors- automation and scaling up
Manufacturing facility
Sole factory- Charkop, Kandivili- 4500 sqf
No equipment to make traditional ice cream or peel fruit
Developed equipment to enhance the process
Sitafal was the biggest challenge as it has to be manually
deseeded. One person can deseed only 2 kgs in a day
manually. Eventually, we developed a machine to do it,
and now we deseed over 500 kg sitafal everyday.
As we use lots of fresh fruits in our ice cream but do not
use any preservatives, distribution is a key challenge as
fresh stocks only have to available at our outlets.
Batch production to ensure freshness
Sourcing
Dedicated suppliers for
milk and sugar
Exotic fruits from fruit
growers
Sitafal-Saswad, Mango-
Ratnagiri
Regular fruits and dry fruits
from major markets
Local sourcing

Flavours
15 fruit flavours in 3 months
Combining traditional ice cream with fruit- super hit
Instant hit- Sitafal, first sunday after launch- 300 scoops
Extension- tender coconut, chikoo, jamun, musk-melon,
papaya, apricot, water melon, melon, pineapple, jack fruit
"We became popular purely by word of mouth
2009- 100 natural flavours, now combinations
NPL- raw mango flavour 'Pickle- lapped up
Consistency in flavours- biggest challenge

Franchising
For faster expansion, better
penetration
Less investment ensures more
management focus on key areas
Exclusive outlets
Rs 12-15L deposit + commission
Mumbai/ Maha outlets catered
from Mumbai facility
Ahmedabad outlet- special
packaging (Railways)
Delhi, Bangalore (airlifting
explored)