Irvine Robbins, who delighted ice cream aficionados by conjuring up ever more inventive flavors as co-founder of the Baskin-Robbins empire, has died aged 90, officials said Tuesday.
Robbins, who started the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream chain with late brother-in-law Burt Baskin in 1945, died on Monday at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California, company officials said.
A statement from Baskin-Robbins paid tribute to the company's founding father, describing him as a "pioneer" of the ice-cream industry.
"Irv's passion and his vision - 'we sell fun, not just ice cream' - helped to create an iconic American brand that is now universally loved and respected around the world," Baskin-Robbins chief brand officer Srinivas Kumar said.
"His dream and love of ice cream put smiles on millions of faces ..."
Baskin and Robbins enjoyed a lifelong love affair with ice cream. As a teenager Robbins worked in his father's ice cream parlor while Baskin later made ice cream for fellow troops during World War II.
But it was in the postwar years that the two men came into their own, taking Americans beyond the confines of flavors like vanilla, strawberry and chocolate with taste-bud ticklers like pralines 'n' cream, almond fudge and jamoca.
Robbins opened his first store in Glendale, California in 1945, which featured 21 flavors before Baskin opened his Burton's the following year.
"There was really no such thing any place as a pure ice cream store," Robbins told The Los Angeles Times in a 1985 interview.
"I just had the crazy idea that somebody ought to open a store that sold ... nothing but ice cream, and could do it in an outstanding way."
The ice cream entrepreneurs joined forces in 1948 and their chain became known as Baskin-Robbins in 1953, quickly setting itself apart as the place with 31 flavors -- a new flavor for every day of the month.
The company boasts a library of more than 1,000 flavors and is currently sold in 5,800 stores in 34 countries.
