The optimism of the five family businesses in ‘Boven water’ is as painful as it is heartwarming

Yasmina AboutalebJune 28, 202211:28

It’s a bright day when a gigantic, shiny Ferris wheel is pulled into a trailer park. Happy faces everywhere. Seventh-generation fair operator Louis Vallentgoed can’t think of what he doesn’t like about his new attraction. ‘I think it’s beautiful in terms of appearance, the lighting that is on it in the evening (…) I just think it’s a top attraction from top to bottom.’

In the midst of the pandemic, after yet another disappointing phone call that a fairground has been canceled by order of the mayor, the Vallentgoed fairground family puts all their savings into the brand-new attraction. You understand somehow, that flight forward. What else should you do if you’ve been waiting for some good news for weeks, months in front of your caravan? Then you start dreaming about the opportunities you will seize when things can finally open again.

Camiel (left) and Oos Kesbeke are third and fourth generation acid deposits.Image BNNVara

The optimism in Above water is as painful as it is heartwarming. Five family businesses fighting for their survival were followed for a year for this BNNVara series. There are 281,000 family businesses in the Netherlands, says voice-over Jack Wouterse. Families for whom the future of their business and staff outweighs quick profit. But times have changed. Consumers are increasingly succumbing to offers from discounters. New regulations often cost the little ones too, says Wouterse.

‘Gherkin king’ Oos Kesbeke, third-generation acid collector, dreams of his two sons taking over the business. His grandfather started the company seventy years ago in an upstairs apartment on Waterlooplein in Amsterdam. The native Amsterdammer, who speaks in Cruijffian truths (’10 percent of a euro is more than 10 percent of a dime’), drives there with one of his sons in a Biro covered with pickle print.

Kesbeke is one of the last canneries in the Netherlands and the question is how long it will last. Because that’s where one of the great corona winners is on the phone: the supermarket. The buyer wants, how could it be otherwise, an even lower price. Kesbeke, when he has hung up, to his son: ‘How happy I will be when I am rid of that misery, then you can do it nicely.’

In a market ruled by multinationals, family businesses are small fish, but there are always smaller fish, as Kesbeke negotiates with a supplier in a later episode. Kesbeke, who has to pass on the price reduction, is trying out the supermarket’s earlier power play on the onion farmer. But it doesn’t budge: ‘The costs are going up.’ ‘Yes’, says Kesbeke, ‘me too.’

This is how we see Above water at times also the precarious position of others in the production chain. Of the employees with families who depend on the steadfastness of their employers towards the bank and the tax authorities who, pandemic or not, want to see money. Appalling, indeed.

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