Van den Bergh margarine works
| Van den Bergh margarine works | |
|---|---|
| legal form | |
| founding | 1888 (as Unilever: 1929) |
| resolution | 1929 (as Unilever: December 31, 2001, as Zevens: 2004) |
| Seat | Kellen , Kleve |
| Branch | Food manufacturer |
The Margarinewerke Van den Bergh were a Dutch-German food manufacturer based in Kellen ( Kleve ), which merged in 1929 into the Margarine Union and then into the Unilever company .
history
The margarine works in Kellen were founded in 1888 by Simon van den Bergh from Oss in the Netherlands . Since the German margarine market was shielded from imports from the Dutch company by protective tariffs at that time, a German branch was set up here, which began on August 20, 1888 with initially 14 employees.
The factory experienced its first heyday from 1890 with products such as Sana, Sanella , Blauband , Clever Stolz , Vitello and Rama . Van den Bergh was also a pioneer and role model in advertising and advertising history. For decades, the margarine factory offered the Kellener and Klever population a secure, well-paid job with excellent social conditions. Work “op de botter” has therefore often been passed on from generation to generation. After the companies van den Bergh and Jurgens ( Goch ) had already merged in the Netherlands to form Margarine Unie and in England to form Margarine Union in 1927, they merged to form the Margarine Sales Union in Berlin in 1929 , and in the same year they merged the English soap manufacturer Lever to form the new company Unilever .
During the bombing raid on Kleve on October 7, 1944, the factory was almost completely destroyed. In 1948 production could be resumed.
When the local production facility was due to be closed by the Unilever Group in 2001, the Klever investor Bernd Zevens acquired the huge area together with the machinery. Initially, 270 jobs were saved as a result. Unilever handed over the company free of debt. The new company started producing margarine and other products under the traditional name "Clever Stolz" on January 1st, 2002. However, structural adjustments took their toll in 2004 and led to bankruptcy. That is why Unilever bought the new Phoenix factory production facility from the “Clever Stolz” facility in 2005 and has since produced a number of “Rama-Cremefine” variants and numerous new sister products for many European countries in Kleve.
On July 2, 2018, the Unilever Group sold its spreads division to the financial investor KKR. In South Africa, this line of business was transferred from Unilever to Remgro. Since then, the new Upfield Holdings group has been operating the plants in Kleve and Wittenberg. Becel, Lätta and Rama are Upfield's best-known brands. The production site is still on the company premises, but has become much smaller. On part of the rest of the area, the residential area Union is being built with an old people's / nursing home and apartments. The old former production hall of the margarine works is empty (as of August 2019).