The Assen coffee machine manufacturer Animo celebrates its 75th anniversary this week. What started as a one-man business in a garage in 1950 grew into an internationally operating company that supplies coffee machines and equipment to the business market.
Animo started in Amersfoort, but a second branch in Assen soon followed. In 1996, the Drenthe branch became the head office. And nowadays Animo has sales offices with its own warehouse in Belgium, Germany and France. The products are supplied in more than a hundred countries to government institutions, companies and the catering industry.
Director Reinder Schortinghuis will bring the very first device out of the stable for the anniversary: a gas-fired construction in which a flannel coffee bag hung. “You then poured it and the coffee came out,” he describes. A world of difference with the modern equipment that is now rolling off the production line in Assen.
“It now revolves around espresso machines and instant coffee machines,” says Schortinghuis. “We are completely in tune with this time in which technology and digitalization are undergoing enormous developments. For example, we are working on telemetry, so that machines can be read remotely.”
That is also necessary, says Schortinghuis: “The market is always moving, but especially now. There are many new entrants and the demand for quality is increasing enormously. So yes, we have to work every day to do better and sharper.”
The anniversary was celebrated this week with current staff and former employees, including Willem, who recently retired after almost fifty years of service. His family ties with Animo were strong: both his mother and uncle already worked there.
A formal conversation wasn’t even necessary, Willem says laughing. “I received an invitation to come by. That was in the afternoon, because I had to take a driving test in the morning, which I passed the first time. I was then double congratulated at the Animo office, because I was accepted immediately.”
“I have always enjoyed working there,” says Willem about his time at Animo. “I’m retired now, but I would actually have liked to work there for a hundred years.”