Friederun Köhnen

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Friederun Köhnen, born on 22 September 1942 in Dresden, Saxony, is a semi-retired television chef and food entrepreneur who now lives in North Rhine-Westphalia. She built a family business that became known as The Food Professionals Köhnen AG, growing from a small operation to a company with about 50 employees and an annual turnover of around 3.7 million euros. By 2007 she had published more than 100,000 recipes and gradually handed the daily running of the business to her son, Volker Köhnen, while she moved to the supervisory board. In 2010 Volker became the CEO.

Köhnen started her career as a freelance experimental chef at the age of 23, working from her parents’ cellar with startup capital of 600 Marks. She quickly impressed the German food industry by proposing canned versions of dried pulses, a move that helped popularize Germany’s early ready meals. She also stressed the importance of tailoring flavors to German tastes, noting that tomato sauces vary by country and should be adjusted for local preferences.

Her entrepreneurial work rode the waves of industry change in the 1960s and 1970s, as domestic freezers and supermarkets became common. She supplied recipes and packaging-ready photography for products, helping consumers see prepared dishes on shelves. Through a Galbani contract she introduced Italian ingredients such as mozzarella, mascarpone and arugula to German kitchens, and helped popularize tiramisu. She also introduced less familiar ingredients like tofu and soy sauce to her cookbooks and recipes.

Köhnen expanded into television in 1984 with a cookery show on RTL, funded by product placement. The show, titled Komm doch mal in die Küche (Come into the Kitchen), ran for four years and drew millions of viewers. Earlier in the 1970s she had a cookery column for WDR’s Hier und Heute program.

Today, The Food Professionals Köhnen AG focuses on marketing campaigns, developing new recipes, publishing cookbooks and producing product photography in its own studios. Recent ideas include a microwave-ready Currywurst and a toaster-ready Wiener Schnitzel.