A longstanding favourite in our range.
Aalshof egg pasta has been a favourite in the Voets Specialiteiten range for years. The pasta comes from Conny van den Besselaar, who has a background in the egg trade and understands the nutritional value
it is. “Much tastier and more nutritious than regular pasta.”
“Much tastier and more nutritious than regular pasta.”
At De Aalshof, everything revolves around chickens and eggs. It is a modest farm shop selling eggs from their own chickens, which roam freely in their enclosed yard.
Local residents and tourists come here for fresh eggs, advocaat and, above all, pasta made with fresh eggs. Alongside other groceries, the shop and reception room are filled with colourful chicken figurines.
Until 1992, De Aalshof was a fruit farm full of semi-standard fruit trees. When it was put up for sale that year, Conny van den Besselaar was one of the interested buyers. However, the farm went to a sheep farmer, who removed all the trees.
When De Aalshof came up for sale again five years later, Conny had better luck. She and her husband, who works in IT, moved to Haps and faced the question: what should they do with the farm? Conny van den Besselaar came from the poultry industry. At the time of the move, she worked at a rearing farm where chickens spend their first four months before moving on to poultry farms. Their first child was also born in the year they moved.
Meet Conny
Before the birth, Conny was determined to return to her job straight afterwards. But when the time came, it no longer felt right. “I will do something from home,” she decided. She bought chickens, a dog, a pony (“The dog cost more than the horse!”) and twenty sheep to keep all that grass short. “I felt like a bit of a farmer’s wife. The eggs went to the neighbours, and on Saturdays I had a stall at the Vrije Markt in Cuijk, selling eggs, advocaat and, above all, egg pasta. I knew about egg pasta because I used to visit all the egg farmers. The egg pasta in particular was incredibly popular, even though it was not yet very well known elsewhere in the Netherlands.”
The benefits of Aalshof egg pasta
Most pasta is made from flour and water; Conny’s pasta is made from flour and eggs. Egg pasta is more nutritious because it contains a high proportion of egg, providing protein rather than carbohydrates alone.
Conny sells this fresh egg pasta under her own label: ‘Aalshof’.
“It is a completely different product. The protein content ranges from 15 to 29 percent. It is more flavourful and more filling than other pasta, so you eat less of it. Another advantage is that it is almost impossible to get wrong: the pasta always retains its bite, even if you cook it a little longer, and it sticks together much less.
For foodservice operators, the advantage is that cooked pasta can be used in a dish later without losing any flavour or quality.”
The success of the pasta at the market gives Conny the idea of opening a little farm shop at home. An enclosed veranda is converted into a guest reception area, and the first coachload of elderly visitors cautiously arrives, eager to visit a working farm with animals and ideally take something home from the farm shop. Next to the farm, the Strohotel opens as group accommodation for weekends and a bed & breakfast during the week.
Conny makes a leaflet for day-trip operators and attends agricultural fairs, leisure exhibitions and the Huishoudbeurs consumer fair. At the latter, she also manages to bring the leaflet to the attention of a large coach tour operator. “That was when things really took off: a tsunami of coaches arrived at our farm, mainly from the Netherlands and Belgium. The German market is nearby too, but it is much harder to reach. Just when that seemed to be working, COVID got in the way. Sales to coachloads of visitors came to a halt, but people started cooking at home and the pasta sold extremely well through specialist food shops.”
Avian flu is currently a major concern for her, especially with a government in the United States that dismisses public health agreements as nonsense. “Bird flu is already spreading to cattle and humans there. One person has died and there have been many infections. In the Netherlands, bird flu currently means poultry must be kept indoors. Visitors to De Aalshof can still see the chickens in their enclosure and see where the eggs are laid, but it is much less fun than watching them roam around the farmyard.”
Since around 2012, her pasta has been distributed by Voets Specialiteiten, dating back to when Cor Voets himself attended trade fairs with his Mustard Dill sauce. “Before that, I used to deliver it to specialist shops myself, in the Volvo, with a child on the back seat.”
Aalshof offers twenty varieties. Voets supplies them in 32 different pack sizes. The latest development is fresh egg pasta with algae. The saltwater algae are cultivated in greenhouses in Almere, and the pasta is made by a producer in Hengevelde.
The other pastas are made in Germany. “When you cook the algae pasta, you can smell the greenhouses again straight away, but once it is on your plate, the smell disappears. It is a delicious pasta to serve with fish.”
“Egg pasta is a very easy product to stock in your speciality shop."
"It keeps well, and all you need to do is highlight the benefits of the pasta. Customers will discover for themselves that it tastes better.
This is how I have been doing it at trade fairs for years. It is so good that there is no loss of flavour or quality, even when used in thick sauces or soup.
Sometimes we get a HelloFresh meal containing pasta. That is a shame, because we no longer eat it. Once you have tasted this, you will never want anything else.”