THEN AND NOW


invested with Fons over 30 million gilders into the business opening a new factory near Schiphol. “We truly believed in the concept of ready-made meals and were soon producing 25,000 meals a day! When I sold the business in ’93 we were producing over a million meals a day, employing 3000 people in eight factories. We were supplying 54 airlines worldwide as well as 4000 supermarkets in Holland, the United Kingdom, Canada and America. In many ways I regret selling the business, as it didn’t do well after we got out, but my life was being spent in hotel rooms and plane seats and it was time to be with my family.


Now “Today we own a wholesale company in Holland supplying 3,500 restaurants with imported foods from all over the world including Asia. I still travel a little and we have an office in China, but I have cut my flying hours down from 1000 to a mere 300 a year! "When looking at newcomers to the food industry I see them making the same old mistakes. There might be special equipment and new inventions but we still need to learn from each other. "In the 80s we helped to keep the costs down for airline meals


"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."


by introducing pasteurised and frozen meals. Today KLM is happy to acknowledge that frozen meals can retain excellent quality, - so much so that they now serve them in Business Class. This is a significant change. Today we run the Aaldering Vineyards & Wines in South Africa. We


bought the winery in Stellenbosch ten years ago and we now divide our time between Somerset West in South Africa, Holland and Spain. We still have a wine cellar in Holland with 3000 mainly French wines (collected for the bad times). KLM is serving our wines in Business Class and Asiana Airlines lists our wines in First Class. So what is the secret of their success?


“Striving for quality and working smart. I have always been closely involved in every part of my businesses and have strived for the best. It is nice to be involved in making something now that (unlike food) doesn’t attract complaints. There is a lot of bad wine in the world but wherever we go in the world people like our products." Fons and Marianne have been married for 45 years and have


two daughters. “But my wife says it is more like 22 years as I was never at home.”


When I sold the business in ’93 we were producing over a million meals a day


We set up a


new production plant capable of


pasteurising food by microwave


tunnels to give it a shelf-life of six weeks


Today we run the Aaldering Vineyards & Wines in


South Africa


WWW.ONBOARDHOSPITALITY.COM 51


1990


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