We love cooking and offer the finest food

History / Our story

Kragtwijk Finest Food is a family business that was established 50 years ago. Read our story below.

1966: Frans Kragtwijk B.V. is established

In the 1960s, Frans Kragtwijk – father of present owner Joost Kragtwijk – owned a candy store and a cafeteria. One day a business acquaintance asked him if he was interested in arranging meals and drinks for an upcoming event. That was music to Frans’ ears: he bought soft drinks, beer and wine, and asked a local caterer to deliver some food. The party was a great success. Everybody happy, except Frans… Being a real entrepreneur he felt there was still room for improvement. Soon another event followed and this time he sourced fresh, local ingredients and prepared all the food himself. So Frans sold the candy store and cafeteria and started a catering business that soon gained an excellent reputation in the area.

1998: Joost Kragtwijk takes over Kragtwijk Catering B.V.

As Frans really focussed on quality and service, Kragtwijk Catering flourished. Meanwhile his son Joost had enrolled in a hotel and restaurant college; outside school hours he was always helping out in his father’s business. Joost had one great passion: using pure, local ingredients to make delicious and creative dishes, immaculately presented. While still at college he started working in Michelin-star restaurants in order to prepare for a career as a master chef.
But the catering business was in his blood, so after finishing his studies Joost joined Kragtwijk B.V. He enjoyed being in touch with clients and was very good at creating events with the right atmosphere. Joost not only raised the company’s culinary bar to a whole new level, he also streamlined the internal processes and financial affairs of the company. Before long, his parents felt it was time to put him in charge of the daily management of their catering business.

2018: Buying Langerhuize: growth and diversification

Joost was happy with the success he had with his catering business, but he was keen to expand its activities. He started looking around and soon saw an excellent opportunity: he took over Langerhuize, a company dedicated to preparing kosher meals and special dishes for the healthcare and airline sectors.
Locally, nationally and internationally, Langerhuize was known for their delicious, high-quality meals. Their focus on taste and quality appealed a lot to Joost as those were the very same core values of Kragtwijk Catering! This takeover not only enabled Joost to enter new markets with Kragtwijk Catering,
it also meant the company now had an in-house dietician and its own bakery! With this synergy, a modern full-service catering business was established, meeting the highest standards in food safety and possessing all the required certifications.

2021: Kragtwijk Finest Food

These days, Kragtwijk is a flourishing business with 70 employees. Using pure ingredients and subtle spices, our chefs create surprising dishes with intense flavours – a real feast for the senses!
Along with our catering activities for business events, conferences and meetings, ‘kosher’ has become a mainstay of our company. We deliver kosher meals to international airlines including KLM, Air France, Alitalia, Lufthansa and Etihad, and to a range of businesses, hotels, hospitals and care facilities. This Mediterranean cuisine, rich in herbs and flavours and known for its use of cooked, stuffed and baked vegetables, has inspired us to enter the market for ‘vegan’ products and meals.
Kragtwijk is a family business with a long tradition and good relationships with our clients. We’re also a modern organisation that closely follows the latest food trends and we are committed to sustainability and innovation.

Looking at the future, we decided to merge the Kragtwijk Catering and Langerhuize brands and change our name to Kragtwijk Finest Food. Needless to say we will keep on delivering meals, dishes and snacks of the highest quality and providing the excellent service and customer-focus our clients have come to expect from us.
We are proud of what we stand for as a business, but at the same time we try our best to stay innovative and optimise our products and processes. By doing so, we honour the motto of our founder, Frans Kragwtijk: there is always room for improvement!