After almost half a century in the confectionery industry, Henri Drouven has handed over the consulting and training company D&F Drouven based in Aachen and is now responsible only for Drouven Confectionery Lab Equipment GmbH. The D&F team of experts around Managing Director Manuel Stumpf will continue to support customers with advice and assistance in product development, storage tests, quality assurance, laboratory analyses, and much more.
By Alfons Strohmaier
Sweets and chocolate – this has been Henri Drouven’s world for almost half a century. At the turn of the year, the entrepreneur handed over the consulting and development company D&F Drouven GmbH in Aachen-Oberforstbach/Germany to a competent partner. The management is now the sole responsibility of Manuel Stumpf, who knows the company inside out and has been active for 18 years as laboratory manager and co-managing director side by side Henri Drouven. ”We are delighted to be able to continue Henri Drouven’s lifework,” explains Stumpf. The team of experienced ingredients and technology experts will continue to stand for continuity and extensive product know-how in the future.
Drouven began his vocational training as a confectionery technician at Wissoll in 1971 and subsequently gained a great deal of experience in management positions at well-known manufacturers in Germany and abroad. In 1986, he became self-employed with the company D&F Drouven, with focus on confectionery and chocolate. When the grand seigneur of confectionery technology tells his stories, decades of confectionery and chocolate history in Western Europe come alive.
Drouven was active in various functions during the 1970s, for example at Chocolaterie Jacques in Eupen, at Noblia in Cambo-les-Bains near Biarritz or as a master craftsman and product developer at Katjes. He held responsible positions as assistant production manager, shift manager and production manager and learned about the companies and their processes like back of his hand. At the beginning of the 1980s, he also began teaching at the Central Technical College of the German Confectionery Industry ZDS in Solingen, where he was also responsible for courses in French and Spanish language.
All these experiences were finally incorporated into the consulting, coaching and training services of D&F Drouven. For a long time, Drouven managed the company together with Ivan Fabry, previously Technical Director of the ZDS, and after Fabry‘s retirement, he took over the sole management of the company. The range of services that the company offers with great commitment today ranges from analysis, product development, sample production, training, quality assurance to technological and strategic consulting. Over the years, the awareness level and reputation of the Aachen-based company as one of the renowned service providers in the field of ingredients and confectionery technology has grown steadily.
As a partner, the company is still available to customers on all continents. ”We make sure that we work exclusively for one company in a category in each country,” Stumpf reports in an interview with sweets processing. In addition to Germany and Europe, D&F Drouven is now also active for large corporations and medium-sized companies, for example in China, Chile and South Africa. ”On the one hand, we act as consultants for the manufaturing companies on site, but also train their employees in our modernly equipped laboratory,” explains the Managing Director. The company regularly offers professional seminars, courses and further training in various languages for the next generation of employees and also for senior managers on all facets of production and marketing. The team offers the following seminars, among others: chocolate, mogul articles, workshops on chewy candies, sugar-free and sugar-reduced confectionery, dragées and others more.
The D&F Drouven team, which today consists of nine employees, is made up of experienced specialists who advise in all aspects of confectionery and chocolate production –from the idea to the finished product. ”Small and medium-sized companies come to us, but also large corporations that intend to develop a new, innovative product and want to run trial samples and tests with us,” says the manager.
Henri Drouven has built up a second mainstay over the years with the subsidiary Drouven Confectionery Lab Equipment GmbH, which he continues to manage as owner and Managing Director. The company offers a wide range of machines and laboratory units on a small scale, for example a sugar drum, a sugar drawing machine, a sugar-coating drum, the ULD-50 cooking and dissolving unit, as well as small materials such as hoppers and moulds, refractometers, thermometers and much more. Here, interested parties can find special machines for laboratory kitchens to produce product samples on a small scale, for example for trade fairs. At the same time, Drouven is also a partner for manufacturers and chocolatiers looking for modular and adequate equipment to get started.
