Former Des Plaines resident knew how to turn cookies into profit

A former Des Plaines resident who helped expand Salerno cookies across the country — and into the Girl Scouts' product line — and later led the Maurice Lenell cookie company has died.

Donald Amfahr passed away Aug. 15 in Florida, where he had lived for the past 10 years. He was 86.

Family members said he came up through the ranks of the food industry, starting in his home state of Iowa by delivering Wonder Bread to grocery stores. Next, he started in sales with the Salerno-Megowen Biscuit Company, based in Niles.

Amfahr eventually rose to become sales manager, working closely with George and then Alyce Salerno, who became chairman of the company after her brother died in 1971. She asked Amfahr to run the company as vice president and general manager.

“His primary responsibility was to expand the business nationally, which he did from coast to coast,” says his son, David Amfahr, who worked in sales with his father at Salerno and Maurice Lenell.

Amfahr pitched Salerno's full lineup of cookies and crackers, but the Salerno butter cookie was always the signature item.

“My father always took pride in the fact that Chicago was the only market that Nabisco did not have the dominant market share,” David Amfahr added. “Salerno did.”

Amfahr stayed with Salerno for 15 years. He moved to Milwaukee in 1980 to be president of Dairy State Foods. He 1983 he became president of Delicious Cookie Company in Chicago, which ultimately acquired Maurice Lenell from its Swedish founders.

Much like his experience with Salerno, Amfahr was charged with growing Maurice Lenell's pinwheel and jelly star cookies from local favorites to regional brands.

“It was definitely a challenge,” David Amfahr says, “but the plan was to launch several new items and increase brand promotion to every retailer in northern Illinois.”

Donald Amfahr led Maurice Lenell as president from 1987-1990, before taking on another company he could help grow, Iroquois Popcorn, based in Elk Grove Village.

At the time Amfahr acquired the company, it was mainly a mail-order business, selling three-gallon tin cans of flavored popcorn.

Amfahr, working with his sons Michael and David, and daughter, Debbie, changed Iroquois's dynamic. The company became a private label manufacturer, supplying lines of flavored and savory popcorn to Wal-Mart, under the Sam's Choice brand name; and Jewel Food Stores, under the President's Choice name.

The company eventually outgrew its space and moved into the Elk Grove Industrial Park to keep up with its private label and mail order businesses, which distributed tubs of popcorn to Wal-Mart, Target and Kmart stores across the country.

“Under my dad's leadership, we were able to grow the business pretty significantly in a short amount of time,” David Amfahr adds, “going from $3.5 million when we got it, to its high water mark of $12 million.”

Jeffrey Amfahr said his father continuously drew on his experience in the food and cookie industry, as well as his contacts with retailers, honed through his sales experience and leadership as president of the Grocery Manufacturers' Sales Executive Club of Chicagoland.

“He loved what he did; he loved going out and making sales calls and keeping up with food brokers as well,” Jeff Amfahr said.

“He knew it was always going to be a good industry, because at the end of the day, people have to eat.”

A funeral service will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday, at St. Stephen Catholic Church, 1267 Everett Ave. in Des Plaines.