To trace the founding of De Menken keuken, we need to go back more than fifty years in time. A time when families with more than ten children were still quite normal. Alex Menken looks back on that time with great affection. "The upbringing I had gave me a push toward entrepreneurship. I wanted to be active and found it interesting to pioneer. When I was sixteen and had the chance to work in my older brother's lemonade factory, I immediately said goodbye to the school benches. I helped my brother wherever I could and grew into the role of production manager." He worked for ten years at LIKO Drinks, which later changed its name to Menken Drinks. The company moved to Bedegraven, and Alex moved with it.

Salads and Processed Meats

Two encounters were decisive for the future of Alex and the company De Menken keuken. "The first encounter was with a technical expert who knew everything about producing salads. His story got me excited. He came to work for me, and from that moment on, we started making our own salads. I sold these in wholesale, which gave the company a boost.

The second encounter was with Jan van de Broek, the son of supermarket entrepreneur Dirk van de Broek. He asked if Alex could supply sliced processed meats to some of his supermarkets. "I started doing that, but I immediately began cutting and packaging the meats myself. Shortly after, we added salads in small packages to the mix. The production of salads, along with the packaging and slicing of processed meats, grew faster than the wholesale business. That’s when we decided to sell the wholesale business. From that point on, the entire focus of De Menken keuken was on food production."