“Frankly, I never met a flavor I didn’t like.”
Irvine Robbins, co-founder of Baskin-Robbins died today at age 90.
Robbins’s son, John, is a well-known vegetarian and author of books about how our diet affects our health. He declined the chance to become the heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune after seeing how ice cream ruined his dad’s health, IIRC.
Reading the article, I had no idea that B-R started out so small and grew into the well-known brand it is today. As an ice cream lover and a fan of business ingenuity, I give Irv a 31-gun salute.
Ruined his health? The guy was 90 when he died – I hope my health will be ruined the same way.
He was right about that. After eating all that ice cream, Irvine Robbins was prematurely cut down at the age of 90.
According to his son, Robbins contracted diabetes and gave up eating ice cream and started eating healthier, which explains why he lived to 90. Burt Baskin died of a heart attack at 54. It was the fact that ice cream affected these two men’s health that John declined the fortune and decided to eat healthier.
Yeah, IIRC, John was interviewed for Super Size Me, wherein he mostly talked about the deteriorating health of his uncle (who died at 54) as an impetus for becoming health conscious.
That’s exactly what I was thinking of (Baskin was his uncle).
If you ask me, health Nazi extraordinaire John Robbins went about this the wrong way. If he really wanted to send an effective message about the evils of ice cream, he should’ve agreed to take over the Baskin-Robbins franchise upon the death of his father. Then, once the reigns of the company were turned over to him, make his first order to have every Baskin-Robbins store closed and the company dissolved and reorganized as a non-profit entity dedicated to the promotion of healthy eating.