Jacobus Verkade (29 March 1906,

Zaandam Zaandam () is a city in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is the main city of the municipality of Zaanstad, and received City rights in the Netherlands, city rights in 1811. It is located on the river Za ...

– 26 June 2008,

Holten Holten (Dutch Low Saxon: ''Hooltn'') is a village in the municipality of Rijssen-Holten in the Dutch province of Overijssel. Holten is located in a forested area just south of the Holterberg, a hill, and is part of the Sallandse Heuvelrug Nati ...

) was the grandson of

Ericus Verkade Ericus Gerhardus Verkade (20 November 1835 – 8 February 1907) was a Dutch businessman and the founder of the Verkade manufacturing company in 1886. Biography Ericus Gerhardus Verkade was born on 20 November 1835 in Vlaardingen in the Netherl ...

, founder of the

Verkade Royal Verkade (Dutch: Koninklijke Verkade) is a Dutch manufacturing company, owned by a Turkish conglomerate. The company is headquartered in Zaandam and was one of the oldest existing family companies in the Netherlands. In November 2014 the comp ...

manufacturing company. He specialized in sales and marketing and was responsible for, for instance, the packaging of Verkade cookies in metal tins, which quickly became collector's items. Co Verkade began working for the company in 1924. In 1936, he and his four brothers (Frans, Arnold, Jan, and Tom) ran the company; Co was a company director until December 1960, when he was ousted by his brother Frans; he continued to work for the company until 1965. Co Verkade is credited with making Verkade a household name in the Netherlands. One of his successful marketing ploys was the ''Verkade album''; customers received a picture card with every roll of Verkade

rusk A rusk is a hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread. It is sometimes used as a teether for babies. In some cultures, rusk is made of cake, rather than bread: this is sometimes referred to as cake rusk. In the UK, the name also refers to a whea ...

which they glued into albums. These albums were on topics such as history, art, and especially nature--the latter written by Dutch botanist

Jac. P. Thijsse Jacobus Pieter Thijsse (25 July 1865 – 8 January 1945) was a Dutch conservationist and botanist. He founded the Society for Preservation of Nature Monuments in the Netherlands. In 1925, on the occasion of his 60th birthday he was honored ...

. Generating a collecting mania among the Dutch population before

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, 27 albums were made, a total of 3.2 million copies. At age 101, Co Verkade drove the first pile for the Verkade pavilion at the

Zaans Museum Zaans Museum () is a museum in Zaandam, Netherlands, located at the Zaanse Schans. It opened in 1998 to preserve and protect the heritage of the Zaan area. In 2009, the museum was extended with the addition of the Verkade Experience. In 2016, the ...

. He married Maja Knipscheer in 1929. After she died, in 1980, he lived with Ien, until her death in 2002. In 2005 he published an autobiography, ''Een leven in biskwie en chocolade'' ("A life in biscuits and chocolate").

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See also