Cocoa since 1911
From our sites in the Netherlands, Germany and Singapore, we produce industry leading cocoa powders, cocoa butters and cocoa liquors specifically tailored to food and beverage manufacturing processes as well as for artisans and chefs. Through our advanced cocoa innovation capabilities and proprietary processing technologies we offer customers cocoa ingredient consistency and quality at scale.
deZaan through the years
1911
In the spring of 1911, an unlikely cast of characters - a shop owner, a gardener, a coffee house manager and a jobless man decided to make a collective and thus The N.V. Chocoladefabriek 'De Zaan' chocolate factory was founded.
1916
Huysman, the owner of a number of nearby windmills, eventually purchased all of the company shares and became De Zaan's sole owner. This marked a new era as machines for the production of cocoa butter and cocoa powder were purchased.
1920 - 1930
Despite the economic gloom of the Great Depression, a new factory was built in 1931, complete with refinery and cocoa butter cellar.
1940 - 1980
New consumer products were soon launched, such as the successful Zaan chocolate sprinkles in the 1950s. Cocoa De Zaan offices were also opened in New York in 1962 and in Hamburg in 1963. In 1964 Cocoa De Zaan was bought by the American company W.R. Grace & Co., which already owned the nearby Van Houten cocoa factory in Weesp.
1980 - 2015
With an annual turnover of US$1 Billion it became the world’s largest supplier of industrial cocoa and chocolate products, experiencing a particularly rapid rate of expansion between 1990 and 1996 via various acquisitions in France, Canada, the United States and West Africa.
2015 - Present
Olam acquired ADM’s cocoa business, combining a global leader in cocoa bean origination and trading with a leading, worldwide cocoa processing operation to create the world’s foremost focused supplier of cocoa beans and cocoa products. Today, deZaan continues to lead the industry in premium cocoa innovation and production, upholding a quality standard based on more than 100 years of excellence.
