S Prabhakar Kamath, founder of the Mangaluru’s iconic ice cream brand ‘Ideal’, died at a private hospital in the city in the early hours of November 6. He was 79. He is survived by his wife, a son, and two daughters.
Prabhakar Kamath was admitted to a hospital following an accident on October 28.
Ideal, which is the iconic ice cream brand of Mangaluru, is a part of the lifestyle of a majority of people in the region. It also has far and near. Prabhakar Kamath started Ideal Ice Cream with 14 flavours with one outlet on Market Road in Hampankatta of Mangaluru on May 1, 1975. After that, another on Ganapati High School Road in the same area in the same year.
Ideal started an outlet named Pabbas in 1996. In an interview to BusinessLine a few years ago, S Mukund Kamath, son of Prabhakar Kamath and proprietor of Ideal Ice Cream, had stated that Pabba is his father Prabhakara Kamath's nickname.
The iconic brand built by Prabhakar Kamath has a network of around 2000 dealers. Ideal Ice Cream caters to the markets along coastal Karnataka, northern Kerala and southern Goa.