Bert Kolkman from Schoonebeek passed away at the UMCG last Saturday. The 75-year-old Kolkman ran a baking company for decades with several branches in the municipality of Emmen. He was also socially active in many areas.
World Baker of the Year. You don’t just become that. Bert Kolkman from Schoonebeek received this title in 2014 in Poznan, Poland. Not for baking large quantities of bread and cake, but for his many years of commitment to the position of the traditional bakery. The International Union for Bakers and Pastry Chefs (UIBC) thought it was time that Kolkman was put in the spotlight for this.
Kolkman was a man who looked beyond his own bakery. Whether it concerned the (international) baking industry as a whole, the centers in which he had a shop or the well-being in his own village of Schoonebeek, Kolkman put his heart and soul into administrative positions.
Tireless warrior
Bert Kolkman grew up in his parents’ bakery on Hoofdstraat in Schoonebeek, now called Europaweg. In 1962, the business was one of the first to move to the then brand new De Pallert shopping center. The name lunchroom appeared on the facade, because the bakery in the oil village also had a cafeteria and a vending machine.
In April 1968, a second branch was opened in the Emmer district of Emmerhout, which was still under construction at the time. Because Emmerhout did not have a permanent shopping center between the two Houtwegen at the time, Kolkman used a temporary shop on Laan van de Marel until 1972.
It was clear from an early age that Kolkman would also work in the bakery. After obtaining all the necessary professional diplomas and completing a three-month internship in Oberhausen, Germany, he started working as a partner in the family business alongside his parents.
The shopping center in Emmerhout soon turned out to be anything but a bull’s-eye. The shops were ‘trapped’ in a concrete colossus where the wind had free rein. Due to the many dark corners, many customers felt anything but comfortable.
The misery became even greater when many retail spaces became vacant in the 1980s. Kolkman did not leave it at that and, as chairman of the Emmerhout retailers’ association, fought tirelessly for the construction of a new shopping center for years.
Relief
For a long time it seemed like it was a dead end fight. The then owner of the shopping center did nothing, much to the annoyance of Kolkman and everyone else who had Emmerhout’s best interests at heart. In 2010 the flag could finally be raised. The entire complex had changed hands and plans were developed for a brand new and compact shopping center with additional homes around it.
“From a purely economic point of view, my wife, my son and I should have closed the store here a long time ago. I was lucky that we also had a business in my hometown of Schoonebeek,” says Kolkman. In April 2013, the new local shopping center was opened with a great sense of relief.
Kolkman, the entrepreneur with the most years of service in Emmerhout, was also given a place in the new shopping center. In 2013 and 2014 respectively, the family business opened stores on Weerdingerstraat in Emmen and on Vaart NZ in New Amsterdam, where products made in Schoonebeek were sold.
At the end of 2019, it became clear to the outside world that the family business would come to an end. Son and co-partner Arjan did not want to take over the company from his parents Bert and Ria and the company was put up for sale. The store in New Amsterdam was already closed and the store on Weerdingerstraat in Emmen was about to be closed.
In September 2020, the Kolkman bakery finally came to an end after 74 years. Fellow baker Sieben, also from Schoonebeek, took over the Kolkman branches in Schoonebeek and Emmerhout. An end of an era, as Bert Kolkman realized. But he was not emotional. “Of course, it will take some getting used to for us and for many other people in South-East Drenthe. But of course we saw this coming for quite some time.”
De Schoonebeker said he was not afraid of falling into a black hole, because he was still active in several administrative areas, including within the Protestant church, the Schoonebeek center working group and SMEs. In the years before that, he was chairman of the Schoonebeek retailers’ association and a board member of the Vechtstromen water board.
In recent years, Bert Kolkman, who had already become a Knight in the Order of Orange Nassau in 2007 for social merits, has had to deal with several serious health problems. Last Monday afternoon he was transferred to the UMCG with acute complaints, where he died on Saturday evening.
Bert Kolkman leaves behind a husband, a son and a daughter. The funeral service will be this Friday from 1.30 pm in the Dorpskerk in Schoonebeek. The versatile baker is buried at the general cemetery in Weiteveen.