Nieuwenhuizen Anniversary

In the middle of the label, big golden letters tell the reader that this canned nasi was a ‘jubileumaanbieding’, or ‘special anniversary offer’. It dates from 1966, exactly 100 years after the establishment of the factory that made this product.

In 1866, the widow Neeltje van der Plas-Segaar started selling preserved vegetables in a family shop on the Botermarkt in Leiden. At that time, Leiden was suffering from a cholera epidemic, and the people of the city wanted nothing more to do with Neeltje’s vegetables, which were harvested just outside of the city gates and would have been washed with contaminated water. Neeltje thus started selling her products in cans, thereby laying the foundations for a company that would exist for almost 150 years – albeit under a different name. She remarried with Mr. Nieuwenhuizen in 1867, and under the supervision of the Nieuwenhuizen-Segaar family, the company and its factory on the Morsweg eventually grew out to be the Fabriek van Verduurzaamde Levensmiddelen, v/h L. E. Nieuwenhuizen, a company with international connections.

While the company was operational, the Nieuwenhuizen family was always part of the management. In 1971, the company came under the ownership of a French business. The factory itself subsequently moved to Helden-Panningen in the province of Limburg, while the sales department remained in Leiden until 1981. Up to 1971, it had been the longest running canning company in Leiden. After a number of takeovers, the company was sold for the last time in 2002 to a mushroom farmer, but it went out of business a year later. This is how the Nieuwenhuizen company came to a definitive end after 136 years.