THEN AND NOW


Only the best is good enough


Jo Austin caught up with Alfons (Fons) Aaldering at WTCE in Hamburg where he was meeting up with old friends in the business and displaying his fine wines from South Africa


Born into a family of 11, Fons learned at an early age the importance of making himself heard. The eldest of nine brothers and one sister, Fons claims that the family had an entrepreneurial spirit from the


word 'go' and were all closely involved in their father’s hotel business in Holland.


Then “We were always working as a family and to this day I work 75 hours a week”, says the indefatigable Fons. Following a stint at hotel school in Zurich,


Fons soon got into the food business, starting up his own food company at the age of 20. His wife of 45 years, Marianne, also owned her own hotel. Together with Marianne,


Fons set up Marfo in 1969 with the aim of supplying ready


Fons' career highlights They ran the company for 15


years before selling it to Martinair


£££ Fons set up


Marfo in 1969 to supply


ready meals to supermarkets and hospitals in the Netherlands


In the 80s we helped to keep


the costs down for airline meals by


introducing frozen meals


Launched


Netherlands-based Delta DailyFood in 1987


meals to supermarkets and hospitals in Holland. The name Marfo is a combination of their names: Fons and Marianne and together they ran the company for 15 years before selling it to Martinair. “In those days convenience foods did not have a good name.


My plan was to bring new standards of quality, convenience and hygiene to convenience food. These were the seed ideas behind the launch of Netherlands-based Delta DailyFood back in 1987, with the slogan: 'Only the best is good enough'. “Although there was a lot of publicity in those days about new concepts in airline food, we set up a new 'state of the art' production plant capable of pasteurising food by microwave tunnels to give it a shelf-life of six weeks. It was revolutionary and we soon expanded the business to six countries using highly sophisticated equipment.” Marianne sold her hotel and


Pictured: Left: tales from the past; right: the terraces of Aaldering Vineyard in Stellenbosch, South Africa


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1960


1980


1987


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