#2809

Josef Boquoi & family

Germany 92 years old Self-Made

Overview

Frozen-food king Josef Boquoi presides over bofrost, which has approximately 11,000 employees, four million customers and $1.4 billion in revenue.

He joined his father's small coffee- and grain-roasting firm in 1953, after receiving a business degree and completing an apprenticeship in Hamburg.

He founded bofrost in 1966, and its first refrigerated vans hit the streets of Germany in 1969.

He introduced new items and developed a business model based on freezing and packaging a variety of fresh food, and delivering direct to households.

Today, bofrost, based in Straelen, offers upwards of 1,000 different foods in Europe, delivered by a fleet of 5,500 sales vehicles.

In Venice, customer orders are brought by boat, while in Madrid small vehicles are deployed to be able to navigate through the narrowest of alleys.

Boquoi unsuccessfully sued Germany's Manager Magazine for including him on its list of richest Germans, claiming it was a violation of his privacy.