INCREASING BRAND AWARENESS HAK is one of the top food brands in the Benelux in the preserved foods sector. Philip Yorke reports on a company that just a few years ago, was owned by Heinz and since its independence has grown both its product portfolio and its sales.
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AK was founded in the Netherlands in the 1920s and started out as a grocery trader; it was not until the early 1950s that the company ventured into food production. The very first product to be produced was a home-made apple sauce and the original manufacturing plant was a garden shed. It was this first product which determined the future direction of the company. At that time, an acidic product such as apple sauce could not be sold in a can, because cans then were sealed with lead, which is why the sauce was always packaged and presented in glass. This is the reason 154 Industry Europe
why this sector remains glass dominated in the Netherlands market to this day. The ownership of HAK stayed with the same family for 70 years before being sold and eventually becoming part of the Heinz food empire. However, in 2005 Heinz foods sold the HAK brand of preserved foods to the NPM Capital Group, which opened the door to a new strategy and a renewed drive for growth. Today HAK is also benefiting from the synergies that it shares with its sister company, Jonker Fris, which was formerly part of the Premier Foods Group. The first
priority was to rationalise the product portfolios of both companies and to realise the synergies in terms of production capabilities between them. Today the two companies are achieving combined sales of more than €150 million with around two-thirds of turnover attributed to HAK. They have production facilities just south of Rotterdam on the river Maas. They are only 12km apart and share a very strong market presence in the Dutch market. However, there is a distinct difference between the two companies, for while HAK’s main focus is on
