Meet The Founders

Nearly twenty years ago, Leon Aarts and Dr. Andrew "Andy" Steel sat in the same business school at an event in Bali, both driven by a relentless entrepreneurial drive, though their paths would temporarily take them to opposite ends of the globe. Today, they have come back together around a single, uncompromising mission: Ample.

Andy & Leon

Leon’s path began in the kitchen. After hotel management college and running his own fine-dining restaurant, he moved his young family from Amsterdam to London in 2001. Capitalizing on London's culinary boom, he built a fine-food import business that doubled its turnover every single year before selling in 2007. But his true calling emerged during the 2015 refugee crisis in Calais, France. Setting up a charity that fed thousands of displaced people weekly, Leon came face-to-face with the staggering reality of global food waste at every level of the supply chain. It was the hardest, most transformative work of his life—and it cemented his identity as a heart-led entrepreneur whose non-negotiable core values center on fair pay for farmers and wholesome nutrition for hospital patients and schoolchildren.

Meanwhile, Andy took a distinct path toward global environmental scale. After serving in the Royal Navy, he spent nearly two decades in Asia leading large-scale agroforestry initiatives, managing over $150M in forestry assets as Group CEO, and pioneering zero-waste production systems. Driven by a passion for nature-based climate solutions, Andy founded the UN award-winning PATT Foundation, overseeing projects that planted nearly 3 million trees across 11 countries. Upon returning to the UK, he founded Green Task Force, using land-based employment and nature therapy to aid military veterans in recovery. His years in Asia taught him that large-scale environmental action only succeeds when backed by rock-solid commercial execution, operational resilience, and disciplined governance.

When Leon and Andy reconnected, the alignment was instant. Ample represents the confluence of both their life journeys: Leon’s culinary mastery and relentless social heart paired with Andy’s military-grade logistics, commercial scale, and environmental vision.

Together, they are building Ample on foundations that will never be compromised—guaranteeing fair pay to British growers, tackling farm surplus at the source, and delivering clean, additive-free meals to public institutions nationwide.

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