Maple Leaf (chewing gum)
Maple Leaf was the first Dutch chewing gum factory . The factory was founded in 1948 by the brothers Jules and Robert Markus. The main product was chewing gum. The name was a tribute to the Canadian liberators who had made chewing gum known in the Netherlands at the time.
history
Due to the popularity of chewing gum, the factory in the center of Amsterdam became too small. After several moves, the company was founded in 1956 in a specially constructed factory building in Paul van Vlissingenstraat. In addition to chewing gum products such as PEP (including for Army Rations in the 1950s) and Donald chewing gum, Sportlife and Xylifresh were later produced. In the 1950s and 1960s, pictures of movie stars were often captured and packaging was done by people at home.
Maple Leaf was an independent company until 1970. The company was then successively part of General Foods (1971–1979), All Sweets (1979–1985), Leaf inc. (1986-1999) and Corbion (1999-2003). The plant in Amsterdam was closed on August 1, 2003.
The two founders of the Maple Leaf factory are no longer alive. Robert Markus died on October 26, 2010 in Amsterdam and Jules Markus died on January 23, 2012 in Huizen.