In 1955, he formed "Allied Crude Vegetable Oil Refining Corporation" and other related companies to participate in the U.S. government's Food for Peace program to sell subsidized surplus food ingredients to Europe to shore up their weak post-war economies. He formed Allied in a dilapidated "tank farm" in Bayonne, New Jersey and, with the patronage of several major grain exporters, began shipping massive quantities of substandard shortening and other vegetable oil products to Europe. De Angelis gradually became a major player in Europe and the commodities markets, later expanding into cotton and soybeans.