Humboldt began in 1982 with a simple idea: to connect people through food. Founded by Enzo Sacerdote — an Italian civil engineer who saw potential in South Africa’s food trade — the company has grown into a second-generation family business with global partnerships and local presence in over 30 markets. We’ve spent the last 40+ years building long- standing relationships with clients and producers alike, guided by loyalty, honesty, integrity, and partnerships focused on a sincere commitment to helping businesses thrive.
Why the name “Humboldt”?
The company started by trading seafoods from the nutrient-rich fish-bearing current running up the West coast of South America – the Humboldt Current, which itself is named after Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), a Prussian naturalist and explorer whose work shaped physical geography, biogeography and climatology. He self-funded a five-year expedition (1799–1804) through Spanish America with botanist Aimé Bonpland, mapping the Orinoco–Amazon link, climbing Chimborazo and studying the fish-bearing cold current flowing up South America’s west coast, later named the Humboldt Current in his honour. He was a key inspiration for Charles Darwin. “Nothing ever stimulated my zeal so much, as reading Humboldt’s [travelogue] Personal Narrative,” Darwin wrote. Darwin’s vision of nature has come to be seen as one shaped by fierce competition in the struggle for survival. Humboldt’s conception of nature, in contrast, invoked balance and harmony: an integrated whole arising from the interplay of countless elements in the living and non-living worlds.
Humboldt wrote “Kosmos”, a popular multi-volume account of the universe made a valuable contribution to the popularization of science.
