COMPANY PROFILE

Hugo Molenaar, the companys founder, came to South Africa as a young technical engineer from The Netherlands in 1935. Soon afterwards, he secured a job with leading Western Cape nurserymen, Pickstone Farms, then the main supplier of fruit trees to, amongst others, Rhodes Fruit Farms one of the first groups to can fruit in South Africa. After serving as an aircraft engineer in the South African Air Force during the Second World War, Molenaar teamed up with fellow serviceman Jock McKenzie to start a company, then known as Molenaar & McKenzie. Three years later, the pair went their separate ways, and his brother Guus, a mechanical engineer, joined Hugo. The company H.G. Molenaar was registered in January 1949.

At first, the company provided mechanical and engineering assistance to farmers and general industries in and around Paarl. One of H.G. Molenaars major early contracts was to help equip the developing fish processing industry on the West Coast of South Africa. This lead to work in South America in the 1960s, as well as other contracts, following the moving shoals of the Atlantic into what was then South West Africa.

Through earlier contact with Pickstone Farms, Hugo already had a network of contacts among farmers in the Western Cape. As the deciduous fruit canning industry developed in the late 1940s through to the 1960s with the founding companies such as Ashton Canning in Ashton and the SA Preserving Company (SAPCO) in Tulbagh there came a growing need for fruit handling, peeling, coring and canning machinery. H.G. Molenaar was to fulfill that need.

In 1962, Cor Molenaar, Hugo's second son, who had graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Cape Town, set off for the US, where he was employed by various canning companies, including the Green Giant company and Del Monte. Through US company, Atlas Pacific, which was already doing business in South Africa, he became familiar with pear peelers, so when he returned to South Africa in 1963, he both joined HG Molenaar as sales and service manager and started the agency for Atlas Pacific pear peeling machines, thus beginning a long association with various leading US companies.

After joining the company in January 1966, Cor's elder brother, Guus, a graduate electrical engineer,  visited the US in 1967 to familiarize himself with Peco, Angelus and Votator, and to secure the agencies for these machines.

In 1965, Filper, leader in the field of peach pitting machinery, was represented by an agency that had not fared very well in South Africa. The Agency was then given to HG Molenaar, who determinedly recovered the core of the business and it started to flourish. Filper, sensing the keenness and vigor of the company at the foot of Africa, acquired a half-share in HG Molenaars business in 1968.

As a result of this connection H.G. Molenaar started building a wider range of machines for a broader market. These decades were characterized by rapid growth, with an added burst being provided by increased tonnages and the first step towards rationalization of the deciduous fruit industry, when more modern factories were required.

In the 1970s, politics began to impinge on business as economic sanctions were imposed on US companies doing business with South Africa. As a result, Filper in the US was forced to abandon its small, but vibrant partner. However, as so often happened in such cases at the time, the local company benefited in the long run. Filper was taken over by Atlas Pacific in 1978, and although the Filper brand name still exists on peach processing machines, the company now trades under the Atlas Pacific hierarchy.

When the company's founder retired from active work in 1972, although he remained as chairman until his death in 1994 , one era came to an end and a second era began with his son Cor taking over the reins as managing director.  In 1994, one of the chairman's other sons, Nick, a chartered accountant joined the company. Today the company has established an export market for its products and supplies customers around the world including the U.S.A, Thailand, Australia, Europe, Russia and the United Kingdom.

In 1998 the third generation of Molenaar's started to enter the company, first Nick's son Martin, followed a year later by Cor's son Stefan, both Mechanical Engineers. Both Martin and Stefan worked for several years at Atlas Pacific Co. in the U.S.A. prior to joining H.G. Molenaar and are being groomed to follow the tradition of service and technical excellence that was started in 1946 by Hugo Molenaar.

In 1998 Molenaar bought Vintec, now a sister-company, their main function being the supply and servicing of the wine industry in South Africa. In order to fully supply the wine industry Vintec signed a partnership with a Portuguese cork manufacturer thus giving birth to Corcap (Pty) Ltd, now also part of the Molenaar group of Companies.

Molenaar recently became the sole agent in South Africa for Sinclair International, a company specializing in the labelling of fruit. Molenaar has been the representative for Sinclair in the Western Cape for many years and during 2001 also took over representation in the North of South Africa. In recent years the growth in the fruit labeling, due to increase in exports, has grown to such an extent that Molenaar established a joint venture with Sinclair International and Simoco (Pty) Ltd was formed to produce fruit labels locally.