Dirk van den Broek
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Dirk van den Broek (1924 - ) is a Dutch businessman, founder of the Samenwerkende Dirk van den Broek Bedrijven, one of the largest family owned businesses in the Netherlands. The company includes grocery stores, travel agencies, drug stores, liquor stores and various other ventures. Born in Amsterdam in 1924, Dirk van den Broek was the son of a simple farmer. Inspired by his mother who ran her own milk production and delivery operation from their farm, he and his wife Joukje started a small grocery store. Their future success in the business was ensured by two separate factors.
The first factor was Dirk van den Broek's determination in serving his customers. During the "Hunger Winter" of 1944 when the Dutch economy had been exhausted by years of occupation, he had a suspicion: The factories may still have had small quanitites of dairy products, but it may simply not have been profitable enough to distribute them. He made a vow to help his customers no matter how difficult it would be. Day in day out was spent riding his bike from one factory to another, gathering what little bits of butter he could find. Nights were spent dividing the butter evenly into hundreds of tiny portions, so that everyone would get an equal share. This small service during a period of need won him the trust of his neighborhood which strengthened his position after World War II when the economy began to flourish again.
The second factor, anticipating new trends in America, also involved service, only this time self service. Dirk van den Broek was the first to introduce self-service, and thus to create a modern supermarket, in the city of Amsterdam. (He would have been the first, had an entrepreneur in the East not opened his store right before Dirk's.)
The 'discounter' grocery stores, still the largest part of the business, are consistently shown by the Consumentenbond to offer the lowest prices of any chain of Dutch supermarkets. Ownership of the company has now been transferred to his sons, Jan, Dirk and Henk van den Broek who turned the company from a small chain of stores into one of The Netherlands' most successful companies.
Dirk van den Broek received recognition for his services to Dutch society by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands when he was made Officer in the Order of Orange Nassau in 1990.
Dirk van den Broek is married with five children.
