November 29, 2016

Smoked sausage meets kroket in new snack combo

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 10:40 am
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The year 2016 is turning into the year of the junk food combos: discodel, pancake with fries, fries with soft vanilla ice cream, and now it’s time for the next level in junk food: the ‘rookworstkroket’ (‘smoked sausage kroket’).

Unox (Unilever) makes the famous smoked sausage that HEMA passes off as their own, but now the next level is upon us with Unox getting into bed with FEBO to spawn the deep-fried sausage snack. FEBO tried to get into bed with HEMA instead, combining the combo with the 75th anniversary of FEBO and the 90th anniversary of HEMA, but HEMA said no. Unox pounced on the opportunity and soon we’ll get to taste what the fuss is all about.

(Link: nu.nl)

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May 19, 2013

Parody of Holland Marketing’s latest video advert

Filed under: Food & Drink,Sustainability by Branko Collin @ 12:43 pm

Last week Holland.com published a video advert in which a cocky narrator explains why ‘Holland’ is the original cool. He contrasts posh English phrases with the down-to-earth words the Dutch supposedly use, such as ‘food’ instead of ‘artisanal cooking’.

The video above is a parody that appeared shortly after — I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been made by the same ad agency — in which the original visuals are replaced. ‘Artisanal cooking’ is suddenly contrasted with pulling a croquette from a street-side vending machine and ’boutique shopping’ becomes the Saturday morning Albert Heijn (Dutch supermarket) run. Added in for good measure is the world famous Dutch ‘service’, a concept so alien that the language doesn’t even has its own word for it and defaults to the French word (although we generally pronounce it the English way).

The original advert caused a minor uproar in the Netherlands, with pundits reacting strongly to the fact that most of the footage is shot in either Amsterdam or greater Amsterdam. Elsevier lists the complaints.

Personally, I think it is a great advert. It highlights the open manner in which the Dutch speak to the point of being abrasive and presents this as charming and desirable. The heavy Dutch accent spoken by everybody in the video underlines the exaggerated, almost cartoonish tone of the video. Our English really isn’t that good, but the message the viewer takes away is that it’s good enough to get by when visiting the country. This entire presentation helps smuggle in a lot of fact-free content, stressing great food for example even though our culinary tradition is mostly one of Calvinistic soberness (as long as you stay north of the great rivers), and pointing out our traditional use of wind energy even though nowadays our record for renewable energy is one of the worst in Europe.

(Video: YouTube / DoLeaveItOutMate. Photo: crop from the video)

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October 14, 2012

Croquette merger cancelled

Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 8:00 pm

The merger between two of the giants of the croquette industry has failed, Z24 reports.

Manufacturers Ad van Geloven and Royaan failed to come to an agreement. This means a new lease of life for the famous Van Dobben brand.

As we reported in November last year, two of the largest manufacturers of the deep-fried Dutch delicacy called croquette or kroket were to “form a company with a combined turnover of 246 million euro and almost 1,100 employees”. Ad van Geloven is behind the Mora brand, and Royaan behind Kwekkeboom and Van Dobben.

The Dutch agency that tries to keep competition in markets fair, the NMa, had given its blessing to the merger last month on the condition that the Van Dobben brand would disappear altogether from supermarket freezers.

(Photo by Omid Tavallai, some rights reserved)

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September 15, 2012

Saturday shorts: phone book dies, Dobben croquette disappears, other free market failures

Filed under: Food & Drink,General,Health by Branko Collin @ 12:51 pm

De Telefoongids to fire hundreds of employees

The phone book company that is trying to silence Alexander Klöpping is planning to fire 30% of its 800 employees, Z24 reports.

According to European Directories, the ‘restructuring’ is necessary for a print-to-online transition. The company has also declared that it plans to continue distribution of its paper phone book, despite opposition of Dutch parliament, amongst others.

Klöpping had registered the domain sterftelefoongidssterf.nl (‘die, phone book, die’), which he redirected to the presumed cancellation page of the phone book.

Famous croquette to disappear from supermarket shelves because of anti-monopoly rules

Snack producer Royaan can no longer use its famous brand Van Dobben in supermarkets if it wants to continue its merger with Ad van Geloven (of amongst other the Mora brand).

The Dutch anti-monopoly agency NMa has determined that Royaan must license the brand for supermarket use to another manufacturer during a period of six years according to NOS. After that the brand must be discontinued. The brand may still be used in snack bars; according to NMa there are still enough players in that market to keep it healthy. The intended merger of the snack giants was announced in November 2011.

Krokets or croquettes are a Dutch snack that consists of ragout deep-fried in a breadcrumb jacket.

Experiment with dental free market must be stopped

A recent, nationwide experiment in which dentists could determine their own rates must be stopped the court in The Hague said last Wednesday.

According to Z24, dentists’ rates had risen 6% since the start of the experiment. When Dutch parliament indicated in July it wanted to have the experiment stopped, the association for dentists sued the caretaker minister for public health, but lost. The experiment started in January of this year and was to run for three years.

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November 16, 2011

Goose meat croquettes made from airport geese

Filed under: Animals,Aviation,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 12:47 pm
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We’ve written a lot of croquette stories on this blog, made from meat leftovers, questionable vegetarian variants and about general croquette awareness.

A goose meat croquette sounds to me like a Dutch Christmas appetizer or even a fancy French one. However, the geese in question are some of 100.000 geese a year that are shot to stop planes at Schiphol getting geese in their engines.

Beach side café Beach Inn in IJmuiden, North Holland is serving goose meat croquettes made from the geese shot down at Schiphol airport. As I also saw recently on telly, a goose hunter for the airport said catching and releasing would mean hiring an army (they fly back to the airport anyways, a waste of time) and poisoning their eggs is just not done anymore and doesn’t really help.

The geese are usually destroyed or sometimes end up in cat food. Rob Hagenouw, an artist from Amsterdam, contacted some hunters, score some goose and worked hard at creating his own recipe. He says that with his croquettes, the flavours really come out.

Eating goose, or turkey for that matter, is not really a Christmas thing in the Netherlands for many reasons. First, many people do not have ovens due to a lack of living space. They have combination microwave and and oven devices that barely fit a decent sized pizza. Second, even if you do have an oven like I do, a goose or turkey won’t fit. Guineafowl or chicken is the best you can hope for. Another reason is that it’s just not a Dutch tradition to shove a big bird in the oven.

(Link: www.telegraaf.nl)

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November 5, 2011

Croquette giants Mora, Kwekkebek and Van Dobbe considering a merger

Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 4:29 pm

The two parent companies of three of the best known snack brands in the Netherlands are considering a merger.

Ad van Geloven from Tilburg (Mora) and Royaan (Kwekkeboom, Van Dobben) would form a company with a combined turnover of 246 million euro and almost 1,100 employees. The new company would be led by Ad van Geloven CEO Peter Doodeman (55), whereas Royaan’s CEO Bart Bakker (43) would lead the merger process, Z24 reports.

Whether the merger will become reality is dependent among others on a verdict of the European Commission which will have to see of the new super company will not form an illegal monopoly. I do not think that ought to be a problem, as there will still be ‘lekkers van Beckers’ (Royal Wessanen, 700 million euro turnover, 2,100 employees).

Croquette purists can breathe easy, “There will be no fusion croquette” Doodeman told Omroep Brabant.

(Photo by Photocapy, some rights reserved)

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October 23, 2008

FEBO croquette more expensive than Fortis shares

Filed under: Food & Drink,General by Orangemaster @ 5:12 pm
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A croquette (in Dutch ‘kroket’)(more info here) at the Dutch fast food chain FEBO is currently more expensive than a share of Benelux bank Fortis, according to the Amsterdam Stock Exchange of today. At 13:30 CET the Fortis share was a steal at EUR 0,98.

A croquette at FEBO costs EUR 1,20. A ‘vitaaltje’ (vegetarian croquette) is just one euro during all of October.

The Fortis bank recently had to be bailed out by the Dutch government because of the international credit crisis. Since then its share price has been taking a beating, to put it mildly.

But hey, there’s always junk food.

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December 13, 2007

Getting a kroket with your mobile phone

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink,Online by Orangemaster @ 10:29 am
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The Rabobank together with junk food chain Febo are making it possible for people to buy food using a mobile phone. It is a beta test.

As of Monday, 17 December hungry Rabobank clients who meet certain conditions can dig in to some Febo junk food on the Leidsestraat in Amsterdam by paying with their mobile phone. Some three to four Febo restaurants will be equipped to deal with mobile phone payments soon.

There’s a few catches: only hungry Rabo Mobiel clients can use this wireless payment service. And they also need to have a phone that supports Near Field Communication (NFC), which are apparently not easy to come by. Of course, the Rabobank says it plans to do something about that.

And then I wonder about payment problems, extra fees and all that. If anyone can actually do this, please share your experience with us!

(Link: webwereld)

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