Red Band was founded in 1928 in Roosendaal (Noord-Brabant) by T.J. (Teunis) Overwater, a Rotterdammer, as a factory for drop- en suikerwerken: licorice and sugar confectionery. According to Dutch Wikipedia, the firm set up in the former match factory of Charles Loyens on the Spoorstraat, which had stood empty since 1920, and employed 25 people by the end of its first year.
Red Band is now a brand of the Swedish group Cloetta, and the Roosendaal site makes not only Red Band products but also other Dutch Cloetta brands such as Venco. A part of the factory built in 1935 is a listed national monument.
Mergers and owners
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1928 | Founded in Roosendaal by T.J. Overwater |
| 1965 | Acquires Venco |
| 1977 | Red Band and Venco form the Verenigde Dropfabrieken (VDF) |
| 1986 | VDF acquired by CSM |
| 1989 | Acquires VTS Suikerwerken (fruit gums) |
| 1990 | Acquires Tonnema, maker of KING peppermints |
| 1999 | Acquires Rademaker, maker of Haagsche Hopjes |
| 2005 | CSM's confectionery arm (by then RBV Leaf) sold to CVC Capital and Nordic Capital |
| 2012 | Leaf Holland merges with Cloetta |
Dates are as given by Dutch Wikipedia's article on the company. The acquisitions explain why several unrelated-looking Dutch classics, from KING peppermints to Haagsche hopjes, ended up in the same group.
Wine gums and drop
Outside the Netherlands Red Band is known mostly for its wine gums and fruit gums. The wine gum itself is a British invention, generally credited to Charles Gordon Maynard of the London firm Maynards in the early twentieth century; Red Band is a Dutch maker of the format, not its inventor. At home the brand is just as much a licorice maker, with soft, sweet drop that sits mainly at the zoete drop end of the range, and mixed bags combining drop and fruit gums.
Scale
Dutch Wikipedia reports that in 2019 the Roosendaal factory employed around 145 people and produced roughly 19,000 tonnes of confectionery a year, which makes it one of the larger sweet factories in the country.