Owner
Introducing our owner and Chairman & CEO, Károly Egyed
“Chestnuts have been my childhood passion. I was 5–6 years old when, during the grape harvest at my grandparents’ in Zala, I first became acquainted with sweet chestnuts. At the age of 8, during another harvest, I dug up a few small wild chestnut seedlings and planted them at my parents’ house in Gödöllő.
After graduating from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics as a Mathematical Engineer, I became a scholarship holder at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for three years. I later greatly benefited from this theoretical and experimental research work.
At relatives’ and friends’ homes in Somogy, it was a tradition to make homemade chestnut purée. We would boil 3–4 kg of chestnuts in a pot of water, and the family of 4–5 people would sit around, cutting the chestnuts in half and scraping out the inside. After about fifteen minutes, the hands of the future chestnut processor would cramp up, and I would start thinking about how this process could be mechanized. The first machine built for family use turned out so well that, encouraged by friends, I started a business, and we produced 64 tons of chestnut paste during the October campaign season.
Alongside running the business, there is unfortunately little time left for family life. Fortunately, all four of my children love chestnut purée, so they are a bit more understanding toward parents struggling with a lack of time.”
