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5. History In 1956, Dr Karl Dornow, B.Sc (Economics), took on the representation of the then machine factory EILERT N.V., The Hague, manufacturer of potato peeling and vegetable cutting machines, initially for a limited area of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1961, the current owner and managing director Karl Dietrich Dornow joined his father's company. During his student years at university, he had already assisted his father in the family business. Additionally, the representation of the Dutch firm KIREMA N.V., producer of (among other things) deep-fat fryers for the small scale production of French fries and potato chips (UK: chips and crisps) was then taken on. After a short preparation phase, we began to sell regular quantities of small-scale, semi-automatic Fench fry production lines manufactured by KIREMA N.V. Upon our initiative, KIREMA N.V. designed larger continuous fryers. The newly-developing industrial branch of potato processing required a growing number of ever-larger plants. We were able to procure a larger number of orders for the companies EILERT and KIREMA. KIREMA proved inadequate to handle the expanding organizational tasks. So the then owner J. Kwakkenbos founded KIREMKO N.V. We took on the representation of this company, and sold numerous quantities of its fully-automatic production plants for French fries (UK:chips) in Germany and neighboring countries. Unfortunately, the so very successful cooperation with KIREMKO was terminated in the late 1960s, when the the owner's son was supposed to assume the lucrative representation. Our advice marks the beginning of the history of today's large and established potato-processing companies: in Germany, STÖVER; AMBERGER; HELMER, among others; in Switzerland, KADI-Frites, BISCHOFSZELL; and FLENSTEDT in Denmark. Dornow also played a pioneering role in the field of potato peeling for the fresh market, and supplied the first more or less automatic peeling plants for large canteens. Among our clients: nearly all plants of Bayer AG, the Ford works at Cologne, the university hospitals of Marburg and Gießen, and many others. In the seventies, DORNOW was the first European company to develop roller peeling machines for the continous mechanical peeling of potatoes, as well as for other root vegetables and tubers. Gradually, we designed and built complete lines of peeling machines and plants. Another important milestone: in the late 1980s, DORNOW was the first company worldwide to develop roller peeling machines that could function without water and without generating waste water, soon followed by batch peeling machines, as carborundum and blade versions that could be operated without water. Developments nobody had ever thought possible. Soon
we were accepting orders for planning packages. For instance,
we took on the planning of a potato-processing factory,
commissioned by the University of Sarajevo. Elements of this
planning package were potato reception, sorting, fully
airconditioned storage of 12,000 t of potatoes, a
French fry production line, production of potato salad and
croquette potatoes, cooling and deep-freezing, altogether,
a total of five production buildings. |