Klene is the second of the principal Dutch licorice firms by market share and the one most strongly identified, in the Dutch consumer's imagination, with the salted and double-salted end of the drop spectrum. Founded in 1925 in Oosterhout (Noord-Brabant), the firm has remained at its original location continuously and is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German-Dutch confectionery group Katjes International (acquired 2013). Klene's reference product — the Klene Dubbelzout line — is the de facto standard for the Dutch double-salt category, and a Dutch eater referring to "een Klene Dubbelzout" is using a near-generic term in the manner of an English speaker referring to "a Marmite."
Beyond the dubbelzout line, Klene's commercial significance has been disproportionately driven by its Autodrop subsidiary, founded as an internal brand in the 1990s and now one of the largest single Dutch confectionery brands by retail value. The Autodrop range — vehicle-shaped sweet licorice products oriented toward the children's market — has captured a substantial share of the modern Dutch children's-licorice trade and represents one of the more successful commercial innovations in Dutch confectionery of the past several decades.
The 1925 founding
Klene was founded in 1925 by Cornelis Klein (the firm name is a phonetic rendering of the founder's surname) as a small confectionery firm producing licorice and boiled candy in Oosterhout. The firm's initial production was modest — perhaps 50 tonnes per year in the late 1920s — and was distributed principally to local retailers in the Brabant region. Industrial expansion at scale began in the 1930s, accelerated through the post-war period, and reached the firm's modern production capacity in the 1970s. The Oosterhout factory has been the centre of operations continuously since the founding, with substantial expansions in the 1950s and 1980s but no relocation.
The firm's commercial identity has, from the early decades, been more aggressively positioned toward the strong-salted end of the drop range than Venco's more central position. This positioning was partly accidental — the original Klein family had a particular interest in the salmiak product — and partly strategic — the salted end of the market offered less direct competition with the longer-established Venco. The result is that Klene became, by the 1950s, the firm most strongly identified with the assertive Dutch licorice tradition, and the brand's product range has remained correspondingly weighted toward the higher-salmiak categories.
Dubbelzout: the reference line
The Klene Dubbelzout line is the Dutch double-salt category's de facto reference standard. The product, in its standard form, is a hard salmiak-coated lozenge in the classical ruit shape, with an ammonium chloride concentration of approximately 5.5–6.5% — solidly within the dubbelzout range and at a strength that most Dutch dubbelzout eaters consider canonical rather than extreme. The product has been in continuous production since the 1950s in essentially the same form, with packaging updates but no substantial recipe change.
The line's market position is sufficiently dominant that competing dubbelzout products from other firms are routinely benchmarked against Klene's. A Venco dubbelzout, a supermarket house-brand dubbelzout, an artisanal dubbelzout from a regional confectioner — all are, in industry conversation, positioned explicitly relative to "the Klene." The benchmarking effect is real and is one of the firm's most durable competitive assets: in a category as culturally specific as dubbelzout, occupying the reference slot is more valuable than competing on price or innovation.
Autodrop: the subsidiary
Autodrop was founded as an internal Klene brand in the late 1990s — sources variously cite 1994 and 1996 as the launch year — with a deliberately distinct identity from the parent brand. Where Klene's main range targets adult consumers in the salted and dubbelzout categories, Autodrop targets children with sweet, soft, brightly-coloured licorice products in vehicle shapes (cars, trucks, fire engines, tractors, motorcycles, helicopters). The visual identity, packaging, and product range are all consciously oriented toward the children's market and have a more playful tone than the parent brand's quieter packaging.
The commercial success of Autodrop has been substantial. The brand grew rapidly through the late 1990s and early 2000s, captured a significant share of the Dutch children's-licorice category by the mid-2000s, and is now estimated to have annual revenues comparable to the entire Klene main brand. The brand has also expanded internationally with greater success than most Dutch licorice products, with meaningful presence in Germany, Belgium, Scandinavia, and (through the Katjes parent) in several Eastern European markets.
The shape vocabulary of Autodrop deserves a brief note. The vehicle shapes are distinctive Dutch children's-licorice forms in their own right and have, over the past three decades, become recognisable enough that Dutch children associate them with the brand specifically rather than with the broader licorice category. This is in contrast to the traditional drop shapes (treated under drop shapes), which are industry-wide rather than brand-specific.
The Katjes acquisition
Klene's acquisition by the German firm Katjes International in 2013 was, like Venco's acquisition by Cloetta four years earlier, the latest in a sequence of corporate ownership changes that began in the 1980s. The firm passed through several intermediate owners (including the British group Cadbury Schweppes briefly in the 1990s) before settling under Katjes ownership. Katjes is, in confectionery terms, a sensible parent for Klene: the firm has substantial gummy-candy and licorice expertise, a strong German market position that complements Klene's Dutch dominance, and a record of preserving acquired brand identities rather than absorbing them into a unified house brand.
The Katjes era has, accordingly, seen relatively little change in Klene's day-to-day operations. The Oosterhout factory continues to produce the firm's main lines, the brand identity has remained stable, and the Autodrop subsidiary has continued its independent trajectory. The principal change has been increased export activity, particularly into the German market where Katjes has a strong distribution network, and several modest product extensions targeted at the Katjes parent's existing channels.
Position in the Dutch market
Klene's market position in Dutch licorice is, like Venco's, remarkably stable across decades. The firm holds approximately 20–25% of branded Dutch licorice sales by value, with Autodrop adding a further substantial share on top in the children's category. The combined Klene-and-Autodrop position makes the firm the largest single licorice producer in the Dutch market by volume, although the more central market positioning of Venco gives that firm the larger share of the adult-market revenue.
The Klene firm has, throughout its history, occupied a complementary rather than directly competitive position to Venco. Where Venco is the moderate, central, default Dutch licorice firm, Klene is the assertive, specialist, distinctive one. The two firms have coexisted for a century without either substantially encroaching on the other's territory — and the market structure has been correspondingly stable, with new entrants having to find their position in the spaces that Venco and Klene have not occupied rather than challenging either firm directly.
This stability is, like much else in the Dutch licorice trade, partly a function of the cultural specificity of the product. The Dutch licorice market is sufficiently small, sufficiently culturally specific, and sufficiently insulated from the wider European confectionery industry that the four-firm structure that has dominated for fifty years (Venco, Klene, Red Band, Droste) is unlikely to be substantially disrupted by foreign entry or by domestic disruption. Klene's particular position within that structure — as the assertive, specialist, salt-end firm — is part of the equilibrium.