Stefan van de Ven (55) does not stop. The Veghelaar leads around the Noordkade at breakneck speed, an industrial complex in its North Brabant village. Along the local theater, past a museum about the industrial heritage of Veghel, along the simulated ‘Chocolate factory’ where children can get acquainted with the Chocolate production process. And along many other companies, start-ups and adult companies.
Van de Ven bought the site seventeen years ago with his brother Frank. At first they thought: we demolished the whole thing, put down a distribution center and rent it out to Jumbo or Sligro. “Making meters, ramming and getting away again,” says Van de Ven. But when the brothers were walking around, they found the complex “far too good to demolish”.
There is now also a restaurant on the Noordkade in which Van de Ven invested, with childhood friend and former Jumbo CEO Frits van Eerd. They used to work together in meadows on Kreidlers. Those mopeds are now on high steel beams in the restaurant. Old trays hang on the ceiling in which grain used to be transported. Outside are fifteen former grain silos. In between, Van de Ven wants to build a four -star hotel, the Silotel.
The Veghelse brothers bought the Cehave – formerly CHV site, the cooperative trade association. It started in Veghel as a purchasing organization for Brabant farmers, in 1914. She stored Graan in the silos that rose on the Noordkade. The animal feed factory next to the silos grew into one of the largest in the world. Under the leadership of the strict director Henk Mathot, CHV achieved a billion -dollar turnover. “Everything moth of God and Mathot,” said residents of the Catholic Veghel in the past.
Veghel is fertile soil for companies. With over 34,000 inhabitants (2024), the village is quite small, but many a large company had its birthplace. Such as Dairy Company FrieslandCampina, supermarket chain Jumbo, Wholesale Sligro, Agro cooperative Agrifirm, Bas Truck Center and Bouwbedrijf van de Ven. In the Quote-List of 500 richest Dutch people are, in addition to the Van Eerd family, six brothers from Veghel: Caspar and Bas van Heertum of Bas Trucks, Frank and Marcel van Berlo who make business floors and Frank and Stefan van de Ven.
Photos Merlin Daleman
Million bars per hour
Anyone who drives in from the A50 between the Veghel freight traffic will pass a family business at the first intersection Hutten Catering, for decades until the recent takeover by Cateraar Albron. On the other side is another family business: Vanderlande, world market leader in transport systems for airports, parcel services and distribution centers. Further on are distribution centers of Sligro and Udea, the wholesaler behind Ekoplaza, and nine warehouses of the Swiss logistics group Kuehne + Nagel. Big customer is neighbor Mars, which produces a million bars per hour in Veghel – it is the largest chocolate factory in the world.
If Veghel is flat, a quarter of the Netherlands is without food
If Veghel is flat, a quarter of the Netherlands is without food, Sligro CEO Koen Slippens jokes. He partly attributes the success of the local business community to the “fantastic good” infrastructure of Veghel.
Farmers’ organization CHV chose the Noordkade at the time due to its favorable location on ‘De Kanaal’, as Veghelaren call the Zuid-Willemsvaart. King William I had the waterway built to unlock the south; Veghel still has the only port port between Den Bosch and Maastricht. Veghel is also close to Eindhoven Airport, a twenty -minute drive away. The fact that the A50 exit will be released on the business park achieved Veghel entrepreneurs in the nineties with a joint lobby.
In the meantime, Veghel’s accessibility leaves something to be desired, says Slippens. The business community in the village of Brabant has difficulty trapping highly educated young people, because they like to continue to live in the city and travel by public transport. “And then we are lucky that a bus will stop at the door,” says Slippens, pointing out from the Sligrokantoor.
Veghel has no train station, although there are about as many people working there. The ‘German Lijntje’, which connected Brabant with the Oosterburen, was canceled in the late 1990s. That is why, for example, it now takes more than two hours from Wageningen, where students graduate in food, to get to Veghel by public transport. A car ride takes 35 minutes.
With some jealousy, Veghel looks at Eindhoven, which, for the growth of the Brainport region, in which ASML is located, gets 2.5 billion euros from The Hague. Jan Goijaarts, alderman for economics of the municipality of Meierijstad, acknowledges that the business park should be more accessible. “But we also depend on provincial policy. All we can do is continue to insist. “
Another part of the explanation for the success of Veghel is the strong degree of cooperation within the village. That already started with purchasing organization CHV, coming from another cooperative: the Noord-Brabant Christian Boerenbond (NCB), in which subordinated Brabant Keuterboeren united on the intercession of Father Gerlacus van den Elsen, ‘The BoerenApostel’. The Boerenleenbank, the later Rabobank, also emerged from the NCB.
Nowadays Veghel entrepreneurs work closely with the municipality, went into Meierijstad eight years ago. Board members of the local entrepreneurial association, Platform Ondernemend Meierijstad (POM), form couples with aldermen. The municipality also organizes breakfast three times a year for fourteen drivers of large companies from Veghel. “That way of working together is unique in the Netherlands,” claims alderman Goijaarts.
Photos Merlin Daleman
Short lines
The lines are short within Veghel’s business community. Families from Veghel have come across each other for decades. Koen Slippens is from the third generation that leads the family business, after his cousin Abel, Uncle Louis and grandfather Abel, founder of Sligro ninety years ago. Frits van Eerd took over from father Karel van Eerd, who in turn had taken over the wholesaler of his father. Frits’ sisters Colette and Monique still work at Jumbo.
Such family businesses have “a gun factor,” says Noud van den Boer. Until five years ago he was director of the chic caterer Maison van den Boer from Veghel, fourth generation. “For a client it is nice that you can look the director straightforward and trust that it will be fine. If it went well ten times before, the next generation has an advantage. ”
In case of equivalence, we would like to opt for locally
For example, the brothers of the Ven were instructed to expand the office of Rein van der Lande, who was the head of the company as the son of founder Eddie van der Lande until 2002. “He found us too expensive at first,” laughs Van de Ven. “So he chose another. But it was such a mess in his door. Then he said: Arrange that the contractor leaves and let it finish. Then of course you are friends for life. ”
Can it also get too intimate? Personal ties and interests can cause problems, proves the money laundering shop that led to the departure of Frits van Eerd at Jumbo. He became suspicious through a well -known one from the motocross world, in which the supermarket was a big sponsor.
With local cooperation colors -Veghelse companies within the lines, Slippens assures. He is right on his desk, from a local interior builder. “We play a ball within the game. In case of equivalence, we would like to opt for locally. ”
That too can crackle, Slippens knows. After Sligro supermarket chain Emté had sold to Jumbo and Coöp, both neighbors from Veghel took his company to court. According to the buyers, Sligro had sketched a rosy image of Emté at the acquisition. The lawsuit resulted in a defeat for Jumbo and Coöp. Jumbo did not want to comment on an interview request from this article NRC With President Commissioner Colette Cloosterman-van Eerd.
Entrepreneurs from the village keep each other sharp. “I got so hard on my balls from Rein van der Lande” [transportsysteembedrijf Vanderlande]says caterer Bob Hutten van Hutten Catering. “But in the end he became my biggest fan.” Their business relationship began when Hutten was summoned in his twenties thirty years ago at the office ‘On the other side’. Van der Lande remembers: “I said to Bob: you are far too dependent on parties and parties. You have to come and do the catering here. ” Hutten replied: “I am not a frikandellenbakker,” referring to the usual corporate catering from that time. He decided to do the business catering differently, with many fresh products. Hutten still takes care of the catering at Vanderlande.
“If a colleague or competitor goes around the corner, you always look at whether you can go just as fast,” says Van den Boer about the infectious work ethos in Veghel, according to local entrepreneurs a different part of the explanation for the many successful companies that arise. “Just do it, roll up the sleeves,” Slippens outlines that local mentality. “Not dicks but brushing,” says Van der Lande, who comes up with a self -made word. “No Koekelefoes.” He is not the only one with creative language. Hutten speaks of ‘chiries’, full of one option. Van de Ven describes his way of entrepreneurship as ‘intersecting’.
There are also failures opposite Veghel’s successes. In the restaurant on the Noordkade in which he invested with Frits van Eerd, Van de Ven to a row of bottles points: Exota, soft drinks from their youth, which they tried in vain to market again. “I am still proud of it.”
Bob Hutten received ‘collaborators’, as the employees are called at the catering company, plenty of room to ‘do business’. Over the years, 58 cases from Hutten Catering, including Brownies & Downies and IT company Kablau & Joustra, emerged from Hutten Catering. That entrepreneurship was also visible with father Piet, once chef at Maison van den Boer before he turned his parents’ café-restaurant into a catering company.
Local bond disappears
No matter how satisfied the Veghel entrepreneurs may be about what they have achieved, there are also worries. Van de Ven: “We’re a bit stuck now.” In addition to limited accessibility by public transport, he mentions the disappearance of local bonding. Just look, he says, at the takeover of Vanderlande by Toyota, eight years ago. And to the sale of Hutten Catering, because the daughters of Bob Hutten did not want to take over the company. Also look at the move of the head office from FrieslandCampina to Amersfoort. Sligro CEO Slippens is one of the few drivers who still live in Veghel.
In the past, Van de Ven recalls, local drivers met with carnival. In 1999, for example, Frits van Eerd pulled the Prince Frits d’n Urste through the Veghel, which was surrounded to Kuussegat. Or they saw each other at the sports club – although football club Blauw Geel ’38 still has a large business club. At an American company such as Mars, Van de Ven knows, drivers often change location. “Otherwise there are too many ties with the environment. While that is our strength. We have to be careful that it doesn’t run away from us. ” Alderman Goijaarts endorses the point that Van de Ven makes. According to Goijaarts, drivers such as Slippens live in Veghel are more enthusiastic and involved than those who live outside. “That’s a shame.”
When Van de Ven is asked about the meaning of the Noordkade for the future of the village, he talks about his studying daughter. “I actually do it for that: that she continues to live in Veghel, perhaps working here, wants to keep going. Of course she has to choose her own work and if she falls in love with a boy or girl somewhere else, then it is also done. But as a father you can keep that dream? “