Vepo Cheese

1920 Foundation of Kaashandel H.J. van de Poll at Bodegraven. The cheese was bought directly from farmers or the famous cheese markets in Gouda, Bodegraven and Woerden. At the time the company supplied cheeses to institutions, workers’ lodgings and other bulk consumers. 1936 Foundation of Kaashandel J.E. Verkleij at Oudewater. The company's activities were storage and trading mostly tradtional farm cheese. 1975 On 15 August 1975 the name Kaashandel H.J. van de Poll was changed into Poll-Food, a name with an international appearance. By this time, Poll-Food was already highly innovative; it was one of the first companies to sell packed cheese blocks for catering. Thereafter the company specializes in cutting and dicing cheese in various shapes as slices, blocks and portions. The pre-packed products were easy to use and saved a lot of work in kitchens. 1989 Poll-Food was sold to the Hillsdown Group, which also owned meat products company Offerman Vleeswaren, Poll-Food’s largest customer. 1990 Foundation of Vepo Foods at Oudewater by Henk van de Poll with Jac Verkleij, the sons of founders of Kaashandel H.J. van de Poll and Kaashandel J.E. Verkleij. The company specializes in grating cheese. 1992 Poll-Food was for sale and was taken over by the owners of Vepo Foods. The productrange of Poll-Food existed of prepacked cheeseslices, -portions and -blocks which was a good extension to the product range of Vepo Foods. 1998 Family Verkleij takes over all the company's shares. 2002 Renovation and expansion of the production location at Oudewater. 2008 Expansion production location at Bodegraven. 2009 Construction and start using a new storage- and distribution centre on the Henri Dunantweg at Bodegraven. 2009 On October 3rd the companies Vepo Foods and Poll-Food merge together to one company: Vepo Cheese BV.