traded as euronext wes industry food processing founded 1765 founder adriaan wessanen dirk laan headquarters amsterdam netherlands key people piet hein merckens ceo frans koffrie chairman of the supervisory board ronald merckx cfo products natural vegetarian organic foods revenue 706 million 2011 1 profit 17.1 million 2011 1 total assets 368.0 million end 2011 1 total equity 166.1 million end 2011 1 number of employees 1 998 fte end 2011 1 website www.wessanen.com royal wessanen nv is a multinational food company with a focus on organic founded and headquartered in the netherlands . it has operations in europe and north america . worldwide it had approx 2 000 employees at the end of 2011 a year in which it reported a revenue of 706 million . royal wessanen is listed at euronext amsterdam . contents 1 history 2 activities 3 board of directors 3.1 executive board 3.2 supervisory board 4 references 5 external links history edit wessanen en laan was founded in 1765 in wormerveer by adriaan wessanen and dirk laan to trade in mustard canary and other seeds . the company flourished as new uses were found for all sorts of seeds . it was helped by the contemporary popularity for keeping caged birds particularly canaries . at the beginning of the 19th century the landscape around the zaan river was dominated by merchants houses their warehouses and most distinctively their windmills . in the pre industrial age the windmills functioned as sophisticated processing plants using wind power to crush grind and mix all manner of ingredients . wessanen was by the start of the 20th century a large company and following the award of royal warrants it was now known as nv wessanen koninklijke fabrieken royal factories . with a diversified global sales market it was able to survive war tariff barriers and the demise of colonialism . but it was still a typically dutch company with production facilities on the zaan river . activities edit wessanen works with organic or natural food in europe wessanen is next to the netherlands wessanen benelux natudis foodprints kroon biologische verswaren active in belgium hagor bioservice germany allos hof manufaktur gmbh allos gmbh allos schwarzwald gmbh france bjorg bonneterre et compagnie the united kingdom kallo foods clipper tea and italy bio slym . wessanen decided to leave the north american market . its tree of life unit part of the firm since 1985 was sold to chicago based kehe food distributors for 190 million in early 2010 . 2 it concluded the 16.7 million sale of its bread products subsidiary panos in december 2010 3 and sold american beverage corporation to harvest hill beverage co. in 2015 . 4 5 board of directors edit executive board edit christophe barnouin ceo ronald merckx cfo supervisory board edit frank van oers chairman marjet van zuijlen vice chairman rudy kluiber ivonne rietjens 6 references edit a b c d e f annual report 2011 . royal wessanen . retrieved 2 march 2012 . ten wolde harro 23 december 2009 . wessanen sells tol unit for 190 mln shares dive . reuters . retrieved 8 may 2010 . wessanen verkoopt panos . de telegraaf in dutch . 20 december 2010 . retrieved 27 march 2011 . brief wessanen plans to complete panos sale this summer ceo . afx news . cnbc . 14 april 2010 . archived from the original on october 4 2015 . retrieved 8 may 2010 . american beverage being sold for 55m to harvest hill http www.wessanen.com en corporate governance supervisory board members1 external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title royal wessanen & oldid 738530215 categories food and drink companies of the netherlandscompanies based in amsterdamcompanies established in 1765dutch brandshidden categories cs1 dutch language sources nl pages using infobox company with unsupported parameters navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages fran aisnederlands edit links this page was last modified on 9 september 2016 at 14 23 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view