In 2020, the barrel cans fly through the building, robots bring flowers to us and our customers order 24/7 via the webshop or app. Not so long ago, the webshop was still a simple piece of pen & paper, all flowers were purchased via the traditional auction clock and Hoek group was known as the local wholesaler: Dingeman van Starkenburg. But how did it actually start?
Young learned
For the real beginning, we go back to 1977 when Peter Hoek was 15 years old. Together with his brothers Jaap and Wim, who at the time had a flower line in Brabant, the idea arose to start a flower shop in his native village of Katwijk. On the Voorstraat, where sewing studio Robijn is now located, flower shop Fleurado was opened by the Hoek brothers. Peter ran the shop and his brothers the flower line. After two years, Jaap and Wim decided to focus solely on line driving and Peter took over Fleurado as a 17-year-old boy. He soon set his sights on Princestraat 25, the building where florist Bert v.d. Mey is now located. Getting a loan at that age was not easy. The mortgage interest was no less than 17%, something we can no longer imagine today. With 20,000 guilders in his pocket, which his mother had so fanatically put aside for him in his Zilvervloot savings account, he was granted a loan from the AMRO bank after much deliberation. After having had the shop for a good 4 years, he got the feeling that he wanted more than the florist profession. Peter wanted to do what his brothers were doing in the Netherlands abroad, France to be precise. He rented out the shop and with the money he had earned over the years, he rented his very first truck.
A mobile candy store
Without any knowledge of the French language and perhaps even more exciting… without a truck driving license, Peter set off for Brittany. No one had ever heard of Google Maps or a mobile phone. Starting a business like this was quite a journey of discovery. With a few francs in your pocket, you could call home from a stray phone booth every now and then. Peter: “Then you could let them know that everything was okay”. At the same time, the phone booth was the most important source of information for Peter. Every phone booth in France had a thick phone book. The pages that contained ‘fleuriste’ were secretly torn off and used to find new customers. According to Peter, the first visits were unforgettable. The French florists were not at all used to the diversity of flowers from Holland. They bought their flowers at the market or from the local wholesaler. Mainly French flowers were sold here, which were far behind the Dutch trade in terms of quality. They were completely unfamiliar with the line rider principle. Peter: “I literally drove up with a candy store. All the merchandise was neatly rolled up, the only thing you saw when the doors opened was a sea of flowers. That was really something special back then. People couldn’t believe their eyes and immediately started buying flowers”. In the beginning, these were still small amounts, but it grew every week.
Route du Soleil
As confidence grew, so did the business. One car became two, two became three… until there were a total of 6 Hoek Export trucks driving in France. They started in Brittany, expanded to the area below Paris and eventually ‘sold’ flowers right up to the Spanish border. For ten years, Peter bought flowers on Monday mornings to leave for France around 3pm the same day. A few hours of sleep, a quick wash at the pump and early on Tuesday to the first customer. Peter: “I was actually never home. But luckily I have a strong wife who was always there for me and our boys”. On Thursday, the last flowers were sold and the ‘Route du Soleil’ was driven back home with an empty truck. After having driven more than 500 empty trips back, and having discovered quite a few local growers and traders, Peter’s feeling to bring foreign trade back to the Netherlands became stronger and stronger…
Arjan Glasbergen
At the same time, Arjan Glasbergen was standing at Peter’s door, looking for a part-time job for the holidays. He was twelve years old and after the summer he would go to secondary school, the LTS, for the first time. Lying on the beach for eight weeks was not for Arjan and so he enthusiastically started mixing bouquets for Peter, who he took with him on the trip on Monday. “I remember it exactly. They were bouquets with seven branches. Three branches of chrysanthemums, a gerbera, a branch of solidago, an alstroemeria and a branch of pittosporum. We did 240 in an hour,” says a smiling Arjan. Even after the summer holidays, Arjan ‘stuck’ and mixed bouquets every Wednesday and Thursday after school. Until the moment that Peter started importing flowers from France and Italy.
From door to door
Nowadays, importing flowers from Italy & France (also called the flower Riviera) is the most normal thing in the world. Ranunculus, anemones, eucalyptus… they are indispensable in the flower shop. At the time that Peter was a line driver, few people had heard of these products. There was almost no transport from these areas to the Netherlands. And if there was, for example for food, the prices were calculated per kilo, which would make the flowers much too expensive. The empty truck that remained after selling Dutch trade to French florists therefore offered opportunities. Steelberries were one of the first products that Peter brought to the Netherlands and became a ‘hit’ at the auction. These berries did not grow on a nursery, but were cut in a forest that was managed by local Roma. Every week Peter knocked on the doors of the various trailer parks to buy as many steelberries as possible. After steel berries came pistachio, ranunculus, mimosa … and later many more. Now, 25 years later, the same contacts with growers still exist. One of the best examples is perhaps the Parodi family, who have been growing ranunculus (in the blue covers) for us in the beautiful town of Sanremo for more than 15 years.
Dingeman Hoek
When the import business grew, Peter exchanged his weekly drive for a weekly flight to Nice. From Thursday to Sunday he bought goods from local growers and at the flower auction in Hyéres. Arjan was now 16 years old and took care of the sales at the Rijnsburg auction. What started with selling before school and collecting barrels after school, quickly turned into a full-time job. Peter’s 5 sons were also active in the company from the age of 10. For example, all hands were needed to ‘unseal’ the carts that arrived from France and Italy on Saturdays and Sundays. When the location in the B2 became too small for Hoek Export, Peter came into contact with Dingeman van Starkenburg. Dingeman had a Cash & Carry in the auction, but missed nice import products in the assortment. The gentlemen saw a perfect match and thus Peter Hoek Import B.V. became a subtenant in the Cash & Carry of Dingeman van Starkenburg (better known to many of you as our old location in the G3). When the Cash & Carry got into serious trouble, the management of Dingeman van Starkenburg decided, after much deliberation, to sell the company to Peter. Dingeman was a household name at the Aalsmeer and Rijnsburg auctions and the takeover came as a complete surprise to many. Peter wanted to maintain the good name that Dingeman had built up over the years at all costs. Dingeman van Starkenburg therefore became: Dingeman Hoek. More and more flowers were imported and the daily stock grew, which made us increasingly interesting for line drivers and export companies at the auction.
“Dit is iets waar we trots op mogen zijn.”
Van import naar export
Eén van die bedrijven was Rijnsflowers BV. Een exporteur die bloemen verkocht naar Amerika en het Verenigd Koninkrijk en één van de grootste klanten van Dingeman Hoek op het gebied van tulpen. Toen het niet goed ging met het bedrijf is Peter Hoek afgereisd naar Amerika, zag daar een markt met veel potentie en besloot Rijnsflowers nieuw leven in te blazen. Een exportwaardige voorraad aan bloemen hadden we al staan .. nu moesten we het verzenden nog onder de knie krijgen. Volgens Peter was dit een totaal andere tak van sport dan lijnrijden of het hebben van een Cash & Carry. Dat Rijnsflowers, sinds januari 2019 Hoek flowers, zo’n grote rol zou gaan spelen in de dagelijkse bedrijfsvoering had Peter toen nooit verwacht. Negen jaar geleden gestart met Amerika en Engeland en vandaag de dag actief in 56 landen. Dat is iets waar we met z’n allen heel erg trots op mogen zijn!
