To outsiders, Robert Rich's experiments with nondairy alternatives to whipped cream didn't make sense.

His milk business even before World War II was booming.

Not surprisingly, milk ran in the Rich family.

By the time he was born on July 7, 1913, his father, Paul Rich, was well on his way to building Rich Ice Cream Co. into the largest independent ice cream maker in the U.S.

But like so many heirs, Robert Rich chafed at the notion of joining the family's Buffalo, N.Y.-based firm. He would rather show his father how successful he could be on his own.

With $5,000 he nevertheless borrowed from his father, he bought a small dairy nearby, renamed it Wilber Farms and built it from a one-truck and three-horse delivery business into a thriving milk distribution company. Before he sold it in 1969, Jones-Rich Dairy was the largest independent dairy in the U.S.

But years of making a living off bovine excess left him regarding any process that relied on cow's milk to be more trouble than it was worth. He once called cows "the most inefficient manufacturing plant in the country."

World War II provided the need for a dairy substitute. Milk and other dairy products were rationed, all but disappearing from store shelves so they could be shipped overseas to feed the troops. With credentials from building his own popular dairy business in Western New York, Rich was tapped to oversee enforcing milk distribution rules for the War Production Board.

He later was Michigan's milk board administrator. Still down on cows, he learned while he was there that Henry Ford, too, was experimenting with nondairy products at his food development lab in Dearborn. It sparked Rich's interest to know he had serious competition in the dairy-substitute field.

On Top

As the war ended, Rich rolled out Whip Topping. The concoction bypassed the cow, combining soy protein, corn syrup, vanilla flavoring and vegetable fat with an emulsifier to make it stay creamy.

His first attempts at a commercially viable product flopped because the results were inconsistent. The process had trouble creating a whipped cream substitute.

Rich did not sour on the project, and he turned out to be right. A lab tech discovered how to make the process work by inadvertently freezing the product.

Instantly, Rich's team had invented a whipped cream substitute that cost less, was less fattening and could stay fresh in the freezer for a year or more. It eventually led to a shift from real whipped cream to substitutes, which now account for 95% of the market.

The nondairy whipped topping he introduced in 1945 was the beginning of what is one of the largest privately held companies in the U.S.

Sales in 2006 are estimated to have topped $2.5 billion. The company today sells more than 2,000 products, mostly food though not all dairy, in 80 countries.

Rich continued to develop other nondairy products such as Coffee Rich, a frozen coffee creamer substitute that came along in 1961. He also created the first aerosol nondairy whipped cream and the first pre-proofed frozen rolls.

In 1978, Rich Products added Bettercreme Icing that could sit on a shelf for long periods and still be used on cakes and baked goods.

By 1990, with his reputation made, Rich became one of the first to be inducted into the Frozen Food Hall of Fame.

The U.S. Agriculture Department also knew about his reputation. The department was under pressure from dairy farmers to do something about this upstart who was churning into their traditional markets.

When the department ordered him to label Coffee Rich an "imitation cream," he resisted. Instead, he buttered up the bureaucrats with the argument Coffee Rich was an alternative to cream, not a substitute, and a better one at that.

Additionally, he argued, for those millions of Americans whose diets could not tolerate dairy foods, his substitutes were a godsend. For those with religious restrictions on some foods, Rich's cream alternatives were like divine intervention.

The department backed off.

Still, Rich fought 40 lawsuits in 36 states from disgruntled dairy product firms that didn't like the competition. With the same determination that made him a successful business developer, Rich won them all.

Rich understood how to expand his core business.

Once he was successful in frozen and nonfrozen dairy product substitutes, he began a strategy of purchasing small, family-run food businesses that continues today.

He bought pizza dough makers, plus barbecue and seafood firms. Many of them specialized in frozen products. Now the outfit sells baked bread, frozen shrimp, barbecued meat, cocktail mixes and bakery desserts to stores and restaurants.

Continuing a corporate drive to add healthier food to its product line, Rich's firm earlier this year purchased a local baked goods company that makes gluten-free cookies, brownies and Italian rolls.

Rich, a graduate of the University of Buffalo, remained a big booster of the city throughout his life.

He spent much of the latter half of the 1980s attempting to woo major league baseball to Western New York. During that time he founded a minor league baseball team that often out-drew major league teams in annual attendance. He also spearheaded the construction of a new baseball stadium downtown.

To help buff Buffalo's dull image, Rich persuaded actor Robert Redford to film "The Natural" in Buffalo. He also worked to renew Buffalo's depleted center with development projects aimed at bringing businesses and housing to the city.

Rich And Rich

For two decades, the National Football League's Bills played in Rich Stadium under a sponsorship deal with Rich Products.

"We're headquartered here and we are part of the fabric of Western New York," Robert Rich Jr., the Rich Products chairman, has said. "We are not about to leave Buffalo."

Like his father, Robert Jr. tried various careers before joining the family firm. He even played goalie for a minor league hockey team. Then in 1964 he joined his father at Rich Products. Other family members are also part of the management team or work at subsidiaries.

When he died in February 2006 at age 92 in Palm Beach, Fla., Robert Rich Sr. was one of America's wealthiest people, with a net worth of an estimated $2.5 billion.

BY DAN MOREAU