Dirk van den Broek, founder of the eponymous supermarket chain ‘Dirk’, has passed away in Aerdenhout in the Netherlands, at the age of 96, according to local media reports.
Van den Broek was born in Amsterdam in March 1924, and opened a dairy shop on the Mercatorplein in Amsterdam in 1942, before converting it into his first self-service shop six years later.
In 1953, he opened the first supermarket on the Kinkerstraat in Amsterdam-West.
Van der Broek has been hailed as a 'supermarket pioneer' in the Netherlands, and played an important role in the fight against vertical price fixing.
In 1973, he acquired 10 Bas van der Heijden stores, located mostly in and around Rotterdam.
In 1990, Van den Broek also bought the supermarket chain, Jan Bruijns, and in 2004, converted them into the Dirk van den Broek chain, which was subsequently renamed the Dirk chain.
In 2008, the Detailresult Group was formed following the merger of the Dirk van den Broek and Dekamarkt chains, which now operates 120 stores across the country.
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Elizabeth Schroeder. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
