DUTCH TASTE

Harry Voortman grabs a cookie from the conveyer system that carries freshly- baked delights in nonstop motion from the ovens to the packers in the spacious Voortman Cookies Ltd. plant in Burlington. "I have to train myself not to do that too often", he says, nibbling away. "They're so tempting, especially the large windmill ones…"

He would make a good salesman. In fact, he used to be one, many years ago, when he and his brother Bill went on the road to peddle the pumpernickel bread and honeycake they had baked earlier in the day. Later, when the business was humming and expanding, he was in charge of sales and promotions. Now, as President, he has to keep on top of all facets of the operation. And what an operation it is!

With the addition of 30,000 square feet to its warehousing space in 1994, the Voortman cookie factory covers 250,000 square feet on a
26-acre site along the Queen Elizabeth Way. Four hundred and twenty people are employed to supply quality products to 500 independent distributors throughout Canada and the United States. Consumers can pick from 60 different cookie styles based on 40 distinct varieties.

The Voortman brothers - there are four actually - came to Canada with their widowed father John aboard the Tabinta in 1948. They had lived in the city of Hellendoorn, the Netherlands, where the senior Voortman operated a bakery. There were sixteen other bakers in the community of 4,000, which meant that the competition was too keen for any of them to make a decent living. Even though Voortman was ranked number one, based on the number of bags of flour used in a week - 20- he couldn't see much of a future for himself and his sons. And so away they went.

After arriving in Picton, Dad went to work on a farm. He just didn't have his heart in baking any longer; he was more interested in dealing in horses. But his teenage sons Bill and Harry were determined to carry on the family tradition and soon found work at National System Baking Co. in Hamilton.