1930s – 1940s · Our History
The Early Years
In 1935 the company’s founder, Hugo Molenaar, came to South Africa as a young technical engineer from the Netherlands. Shortly after his arrival, he secured a job with leading Western Cape nurserymen, Pickstone Farms — then the main supplier of fruit trees to, among others, Rhodes Fruit Farms, one of the first groups to can deciduous 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 “Molenaar & McKenzie”. Three years later the pair went their separate ways, and Hugo was joined in the business by his mechanical-engineer brother, Guus. H.G. Molenaar was founded in January 1949.
At first, the company provided mechanical and engineering assistance to farmers and general industry in and around the town of Paarl. Early photographs show teams repairing huge boilers, as well as the construction of the Molenaar factory — which the company built itself.
One of H.G. Molenaar’s major early contracts was to help equip the developing fish-processing industry on the West Coast of South Africa. This work led to further projects in the 1960s, which took the company into what was then known as South West Africa (Namibia).
Through his earlier involvement with Pickstone Farms, Hugo already had a network of contacts among farmers in the Western Cape. As the deciduous canning industry developed from the late 1940s through to the 1960s — with the formation of companies such as Ashton Canning and SA Preserving (today Del Monte Fruits South Africa, based in Tulbagh) — there came a growing need for fruit handling, peeling, coring and canning machinery. H.G. Molenaar fulfilled that need.
