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QFFI honors three pioneers of the European frozen food industry who have left an indelible mark of distinction in advancing the industry’s product sophistication and packaging prowess.

Many are called, but few are chosen. As such, the latest winners of Quick Frozen Foods International magazin’s (QFFI) Golden Ice Crystal Pionieering Award have joined an elite contingent of movers and shakers who have instrumentally shaped the international frozen food industry. Entering the ranks this year are three highly successful innovators from as many fields:
- Reinhold Stöver, an entrepreneurial farmer turned industrialist from Germany who founded Agrarfrost and the diversified Stöver Group of companies which manufacture frozen potato products, sausages and other value-added meats, plus a variety of condiments.
- Philip Dean Kruk, managing director of Salomon Hitburger GmbH. Under his talented and creative guidance during the past 25 years, the Grossostheim-Ringheim, Germany-based company became the nation’s leading supplier of deep-frozen minced beef products to the domestic fast food sector, as well as the driving force behind the introduction of new finger food in Europe.
- Bob Prakken, an inventive machinery engineer whose end-of-line case packing systems have made it possible for frozen food producers to highly automate movement of finished products from packaging lines into master cases or other containers bound for distribution to end users.
Each will be honoured during a special ceremony held Oct. 9, 6-8 PM, at the Messeclub in Congress Centre East on the premises of the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany.
The 2005 inductees join a select group of overachievers who have been recognized for pioneering accomplishments. The list, which reads like a “Who’s Who in the Frozen Food Industry,” contains the names of stalwarts H. Harrison McCain, founder of McCain Foods; Karl Düsterberg of Wagner Tiefkühlprodukte; Edward Haspeslagh, founder of Ardo NV; Dirk Ahlers, founder and chairman of FROSTA AG; André Dejonghe, founder of Pinguin NV; Per-Oskar Persson of Frigoscandia, inventor of the FLoFreeze industrial freezing process which revolutionized IQF production around the world; Gerrit de Bruijne, founder of Farm Frites; and Volkmar Frenzel, an entrepreneur from the former East Germany who beat the odds in an anti-free enterprise Communist environment to not only found Frenzel Frozen Food, but to go on and make it a success in the post-DDR marketplace.
“Over the years, each award-winner, in his own way, has made contributions that have greatly moved the frozen business forward,” said John M. Saulnier, chief editor and publisher of QFFI. “We are pleased to honor them for unwavering leadership and the decisive roles they have played in advancing the frozen food sector in the formative years of its development in important markets.”

From Farmer to Industrialist
Reinhold Stöver built a company, which employs 1,600 people and rang up sales of approximately 375 million euros this year, from the humble roots of a 43-acre hectare farm taken over from his parents in Aldrup/Wildeshausen, Germany. The year was 1961 and he was just 23 years old, with an agriculture education behind him and a field of dreams to fulfill lying ahead.
By 1967, with asmall staff of five prsons, the farmer had become a fledgling agra-industrialist by acquiring a second-hand French fry machine that processed 600 tons of spuds into fresh pommes frites during the first year of operation. By 1968 direct deliveries were being made to customers in the German gastronomy sector, and a year later potato salad was added to the range.
Since french fries go well with ketchup and mayonnaise, Stöver began making the condiments in 1970. A year after that he opened a meat processing factory to make bratwurst and other kinds of sausage.
It was in 1972 when Stöver got into the frozen food business, producing french fries under the newly launched Agrarfrost brand and employing 120 people. The following year output increased to eight tons of finished product per hour, and by 1975 the company was producing 100,000,000 portions per annum with exports going as far afield as Australia.
Ten years later, by far the biggest home-grown producer of frozen french fries in Germany, Agrarfrost became a supplier to the McDonald’s chain of quick service restaurants. That important business relationship, which has enabled the company to grow from strength to strength, remains solidly intact today.
In 1989, Weser Feinkost was brought into the Stöver Group. Four years following the fall of the Iron Curtain dividing East and West Germany, the company began producing potato products and chips at a state-of-the plant it built in Oschersleben (near Magdeburg) in the former DDR. Agrarfrost invested some 115 million euros in the project – which included farming and seed potato production – creating 500 ney jobs in the process.
By 1997 turnover had reached DM 700 million in potato product sales, with Feinkost specialties ringing up another DM 20,000 and sausages and production of meat products amounting to 5,000 tons.
Having run the company successfully for 27 years, in 1998 Stöver relinquished the helm to his son, Elke. Since then, the group has increased potato production capacity to 225,000 tons, built a new meat processing factory, established another coldstore in Aldrup, and added a chips line in Oschersleben.

Salomon’s Creative Force
When it comes to creative food product innovation and marketing, Philip Dean Kruk ranks among the most talented people on the scene in Europe today. Anybody who has met the creative, spirited food marketing master walks away felling positively better for having made his acquaintance. His enthusiasm is contagious, among associates and customers alike.
Kruk has spent the last 25 years building up the Salomon organization, diversifying its product line, and guiding its sales, production techniques and R&D efforts.
As a major supplier to Burger King since 1980, on a typical day the company produces some 750,000 frozen patties which go to the hamburger chain as well as to other customers in the foodservice and retail sector. In 2003 it became a member of the VION Food Group of Holland, which ranks as the second largest meat group in Europe.
During the last decade, Salomon Hitburger has diversified well beyond hamburgers, grillsteaks, cevapcici, meatballs and meat toppings. After achieving great success selling Poppers and other Anchor appetizers in Europe – which it continues to distribute to the German foodservice market under a special agreement with McCain Foods following its acquisitions of Anchor – Salomon has broadened its once All-American finger food menu in Europe to offer the largest global snack and appetizer treats assortment on the continent.
“Our lifestyle finger foods span the world of flavour from Asian-accented shrimp and vegetables on a stick, to California sushi rolls, to typically Caribbean chicken wings with jerk seasoning, to Chik’n Double Stick Mediterranean,” stated Kruk. “Items in our Chik’n Sticks range, all of which are very tasty, contain less than 1,5 % fat. This makes for a fashionably light and healthy meal for consumers to enjoy.”

Inventive Bob Prakken
As a young industrial engineer working for Dupont de Nemours during the mid-1960s, Bob Prakken introduced the company’s first standard costing and budgeting system outside the USA for the Orlon, Lycra and Delrin factories in the Netherlands.
He also served as area industrial engineer for the Delrin operation before moving on to join Florigo Apparaetnfabrieke in 1966, where he worked his way up to technical and sales director over the course of 14 years. During that time he transformed the company from its status as a Dutch industrial fryer manufacturer with mainly national business into a well reputed international supplier of complete program root vegetable processing and frying equipment.
Prakken was instrumental in numerous innovations that originated at Florigo, ranging from the IBVL counter flow washer/blancher for reduced water consumption and IBVL vacuum fryers that make use of late season potatoes, to the zonal flow fryer for improved control of the final frying stage, to high pressure steam peeler refinements designed to reduce yearly peel losses from an average of 18 % to 12 %.
But it is in the field of end-of-line case packing systems where Prakken made his biggest mark in the food processing industry, after branching out on his own in 1980 to start a design and consultancy office in Woerden, Holland.
“Nobody was interested in investing in my idea for case packing, as for many years it was regarded as a mechanical or technical problem that could not be solved. So there was no choice except to establish my business and work independently on finding solutions that involved total processes,” said the entrepreneur.
Interestingly, Prakken’s first patent application was actually for a bag seal checker. “Without a quality check on the products that are placed into the case, you can’t go much further with any degree of efficiency,” he explained.
Some of BluePrint Automation’s first customers for systems for case packing non-rigid containers were the early pionieers of the European and Canadian frozen potato and vegetable processing industries – among them McCain Foods and Farm Frites.
Prakken built a factory in Woerden in 1983, and set up a subsidiary in the USA four years later to handle growing business in North America. In 1998 a 40,000-square foot factory came on line in Virginia, and in 2000 a new engineering, sales and assembly center opened in the Netherlands.