Cor Koomen and
the importance of
good service
Cor: we provided the transport from Ede right onto the customer’s shelves…
Cor Koomen, who has now been retired for many years, was one of the very first employees at Kok-Ede. He witnessed both the humble beginnings and the booming expansion, working there all his life until his retirement. An extraordinary achievement! It would be impossible to recount all his memories in one article, so here are a few of his highlights.
“I’d known Cor Kok and Annie Appel since we grew up together in Spanbroek; our parents were in the same card club. In 1950, Cor Kok asked me to come and work for him. I wanted to, but it meant moving to Ede, and later to Bennekom. Luckily I was able to get back home every 6 or 7 weeks to see my sweetheart, the woman who would later become my wife, Johanna Admiraal… so how did that work?
Every 6 or 7 weeks, I was allowed to take the VW bus or the van to deliver goods to North Holland. I had to load the goods on Friday afternoon, collect the delivery notes and invoices and plan a route. On Saturday morning, I drove to Amsterdam via Lunteren and Woudenberg, where I delivered the goods to a customer on one of the canals right in the middle of the city. I sometimes had to take the goods to the top floor, up 4 flights of steps… and sometimes I had to deliver them to the basement. This was the extra service we offered our customers. The administrative side was complicated too, as people used to pay in cash in those days. So I had delivery notes that needed signing, invoices for the customers and of course a bulging wallet… “I’d known Cor Kok and Annie Appel since we grew up together in Spanbroek; our parents were in the same card club. In 1950, Cor Kok asked me to come and work for him. I wanted to, but it meant moving to Ede, and later to Bennekom. Luckily I was able to get back home every 6 or 7 weeks to see my sweetheart, the woman who would later become my wife, Johanna Admiraal… so how did that work?
On Monday morning, I drove back via Wessanen to collect a consignment of cocoa, wheat grits, rice, corn flour and oats for Ede. Then I had to hand in all the delivery notes to Frans Schütte, along with the money that was left over. And it had to be exactly right, down to the last cent…On leaving Amsterdam, I drove on to Cor and Annie’s families in Spanbroek, as they were among our original and most valued customers… I didn’t mind because on Sunday, I got to see my future wife in Oudorp! I didn’t go to visit her in the company van; that wasn’t done. I leapt onto my bike and dashed off to be at her house by 9 o’clock in the evening to listen to Jan de Clerk on a radio programme with her and a group of friends. I might seem funny nowadays, but it was quite something back then. She had a battery radio!
On Monday morning, I drove back via Wessanen to collect a consignment of cocoa, wheat grits, rice, corn flour and oats for Ede. Then I had to hand in all the delivery notes to Frans Schütte, along with the money that was left over. And it had to be exactly right, down to the last cent…
Later on, I was made works manager at ‘De Hoop’ in Bennekom. I lived there by then, with my wife and daughter. One of my memories from the days at the ‘De Hoop’ milk factory goes back to 1967, when closure meant that we had to sell the dairy machines and replace them with industrial mixers for vanilla and chocolate custard.
The custard was packaged in glass bottles; you don’t see that anymore!
Later on, I was involved in organising the Christmas hampers in Bennekom. It was a huge logistic operation. We needed a good structure for the incoming goods, as they were sent to another building in Ede before reaching the shelves in Bennekom. They needed to be numbered and labelled and put onto pallets with forklift trucks. Computer lists were made later, so that we could monitor the stock. And then we had to pack the hampers: there were lots of different types and prices, and we often needed extra staff and/or temps to help us process the mountains of work. Having packed the hampers, they had to be delivered, first from Bennekom to the head office on Frankeneng in Ede, and then transported to the customers along with the relevant delivery notes and invoices. It really was a massive logistic operation!
I know they’re called Christmas hampers, but we had our work cut out with them from September right through to January. It’s a pity that the company eventually became so big that you didn’t know everyone anymore. In the beginning, we were a really close-knit workforce.
And now? My daughter Marian has 4 sons and I’m a very proud Grandad! “