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History A long time ago, in the year 1753 in a town called Joure, a guy named Egbert Douwes and his wife Akke Thijsses opened a new store. This store sold products that belong to the pleasures of the daily life, such as coffee, tabacco and tea. Other things they sold included sugar, rice, cinnamon, vinegar, chocolate and more. Two years later Egbert and Akke have a son called Douwe Egberts and in 1780 he started working in the store with his parents. Things were going well and big quantities of their products were sold. From the order book of 1783 it shows that over 8.000 kg of coffee was sold in a period of little over a year. In 1806 Douwe passed away and his current wife continues the business . For a long period of time, more then 100 years the business stayed the same until the year 1919 where they decided to expand. The opened a new establishment in Utrecht. In 1924 they launched a gift system with value points. Douwe Egberts tried to bind their customers to their brand. With the products they bought they were gining points and with these points they could get gifts. This points system still exists today and therefor is the oldest active value points system of Holland. In 1954 Europe was introduced by the American Army to instant coffee. DE started making a product called Douwe Egberts Moccona which was instant coffee in servings of 50 grams and released it on the market. This becomes more and more popular and around the year 1975 it reaches its peak. 70% of all households uses instant coffees now and then. In 1998 the number of that is only half of that: 35%. In 1963 Douwe Egberts introduces a revolutionary product to the market, a full automatic coffee machine. This meant that you didn?t have to pour the water onto the coffee anymore but you could just fill the reservoir with water, put the right amount of coffee in the machine and switch it on. In 1979 about 80% of all Dutch households had one of these machines and today the number of households that has one or more coffee machines is 95%. Today Douwe Egberts still exists and goes strong with their Teas and Coffees such as Senseo coffee and many other popular products. It is here to stay for a much longer period of time without question. |