| History |
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A family tradition It was 1778 when Jan Dekker Gerbrandszoon first milled oil in one of the thousand windmills that once flanked the river Zaan. The banks of Holland’s Zaan are reputed to have been Europe’s first industrial region – powered by a potent blend of ingenuity, innovation and nature. That same pioneering spirit persists today at Jan Dekker International. Our company has been through many incarnations since those early days, with factories producing everything from glycerine to finished soap. It was in the late 19th century that the grandson of Jan Dekker began steering the family business towards exclusively trading in ingredients. Having struggled to survive the Depression and two World Wars, the company was taken over by Naarden Chemie in 1957. Jan Dekker continued trading under its own name, but now increasingly focused on the specialization of its new corporate parent: raw materials for foodstuffs and cosmetics. Through the years, we have always retained our proud name and identity. Even in 1986 when Unilever took over Naarden International, Jan Dekker was retained as an independent company within their Quest unit. In 1990, a management buyout returned the company to independent hands. Today, Jan Dekker International remains headquartered in our historic hometown just outside Amsterdam, where it is run by a brand-new generation of the Jan Dekker “family”. |
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