From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

Medaillon D’Or: McCain
Europa BV received a gold
medal from a European food
organization for its frozen
mini pizzas, 1981. Pictured are
Harrison; Iet van den Boom,
the first female manager
at McCain; and Tony van
Leersum.
McCain had a two-pronged strategy. First it would do
what it had done in England, Australia, and the United
States: establish a beachhead by shipping in McCain
products from elsewhere and trying to sell them. One
shipload arrived from Canada, and subsequent ones
came from the Scarborough plant in England. Second
– and this was a departure from what had been done
in England – instead of building a processing plant,
McCain would try to buy one or more existing plants.
This would be quicker than building a new plant and
would come with a customer base.
McClure had left a prestigious job, one that was
worthy of a PhD in economics, in which he dispensed economic advice to cabinet
ministers. Now here he was on the streets of Amsterdam, knocking on the doors of
restaurants, trying to persuade skeptical Dutch cooks of the virtues of frozen french
fries from Canada.
It wasn’t easy, especially when the combination of freight charges and import duties
made the McCain product more expensive than locally produced french fries.
“It was very discouraging,” says McClure, “because the prices were high and people
would say, ‘Why do we need french fries from Canada? We’ve got the biggest french
fry processors in Europe right here in the Netherlands.’”
He had to convince the chefs that the frozen fries were of better quality and more
convenient than the chilled fries – which were cooked and delivered the same day and
had a shelf life of only a few days – that many of them were using. With persistence,
McClure succeeded in getting some orders and arranged for a distributor with a cold
storage warehouse in the port city of Rotterdam to handle the McCain products.
The next step was to hire two salesmen, Dick van Dalen in the Netherlands and
Pierre Jar in Belgium, and an assistant, Iet van den Boom, who could communicate
with customers in Dutch, English, French, or German. Now McClure could focus
on his main job: building a McCain presence on the continent by buying existing
factories.
He started negotiating with two french fry processors. One, Huzo, was located
in Lewedorp, in Zeeland province, while the other, Favorita, was in the town of
Werkendam, in the province of North Brabant. “The Werkendam factory wasn’t
very good,” says McClure, “but we were desperate to get a base.” Tim Bliss, vicepresident
of engineering, came over from Florenceville to look at the factory and
decided that, with a few upgrades, it would be workable. Harrison McCain and Mac
McCarthy also had a look and agreed the Werkendam plant would do as McCain’s
initial European base.
The factory had Dutch management and Turkish workers. Anton de Boef, who
was skilled both in factory management and sales, had worked for the previous owners
and stayed on as director of sales.
Wayne Hanscom, who arrived in the Netherlands a year later to be the accountant
for the European operation, has vivid memories of the Werkendam plant. “It
was in an industrial zone, with other buildings and plants all around it,” he recounts.
“Our office was in a trailer next to the plant. George was in there, and me and a secretary.
If I walked from my end of the trailer, the whole thing tipped, and if George
walked to my end, it would tip. So the three of us had to be careful how we positioned
ourselves.”
With Werkendam in place as a McCain factory, McClure turned his attention to
Lewedorp, and the deal with Huzo was sealed two months later. John Huige, son of
one of the brothers who had owned the Lewedorp plant, stayed as manager. Both
deals cost McCain less than it would have cost to build new plants. With the two
acquisitions, McCain overnight became a player in the french fry business in four
countries. Each plant had different customers in the Netherlands. Favorita also did
business in Germany, while Huzo shipped french fries to Belgium and France.
With imports continuing from Scarborough, the company now had three plants
manufacturing product to sell in Europe. However, the English potatoes could not
be mixed with the Dutch Bintje potatoes because the English potatoes had white
flesh while the Dutch ones had yellow. So the English shipments were earmarked
72 From the Ground up
Across the chA nnel 73
LEFT: The Werkendam plant,
1972. The office is in the
trailer to the right of the
factory.
RIGHT: A truck carrying a
load of potatoes arrives at
the Werkendam factory.