hin a year a steamdriven milling and baking works was opened in Amsterdam; other towns soon followed suit. The success of these factories was related to the cheapness of the bread and to the image of luxury that was attached to white bread.
Chapter 4. In dairying, production moved from farms to factories after 1880 in the northern provinces and after 1893 in the south. Danish competition began to be felt in the 1870s by Frisian farmers who had traditionally supplied the British market with top-quality butter. The improved hygiene and more systematic approach of buttermaking on Danish farms were the result of an intensive education programme among farmers and farmers' wives. Incidentally, the cream separator reached a sufficient state of perfection by 1879. This German/Swedish invention was first adopted in Friesland by a few dairy merchants who set up small factories and bought milk from neighbouring farmers. Conflicts over the price of milk together with the lively interest in improved dairy production, caused the formation of the first cooperative society in 1883. In the south of the country, cooperative diarying began in 1893. Here, farms were extremely small, and steamdriven factories would be far too costly. Very cheap handpowered separators were used in over two hundred miniature diary factories, where milk of 20 or 30 cows was brought twice a day.
Chapter 5. In the 1870s, ‘artificial butter’, ‘butterine’ or margarine blends threatened the market position of ‘real’ Dutch butter abroad. Mège's 1869 patent for oleomargarine was bought independently in 1872 by two Dutch butter merchants who were engaged in severe competition on the British market. Both Jurgens and Van den Bergh had been specialised in buying inferior butter from the southern Dutch provinces, Germany and Austria, which they treated and mixed until a product was obtained that could be sold in Britain. Complaints in various countries during the 1880s over adulterated butter led to an ever stricter regulation of the international trade in butter and ‘artificial’ mixtures. Product quality was gradually improved, especially through the use of ice and refrigerating machinery.
Chapter 6. Traditional methods of brewing were abandoned in some Dutch regions when an increasing amount of consumers began to show a preference for Bavarian lager beer in the 1850s and 1860s. This new kind of beer, made by bottom fermentation, was brought to Amsterdam by the new railways. Where infrastructure was poor, traditional local beweries using top fermentation survived well into the 20th century.
Low temperatures were crucial to brewing in the ‘Bavarian’ way. The lack of natural ice in the Netherlands could only be overcome by using the newly developed refrigerating machinery. These investments influenced the scale of operations, and lager-breweries were mainly situated in urban areas with a sufficiently large population of (middle class) consumers and export facilities.
Chapter 7. In sugar refining, the 1830s and 1840s saw a rapid diffusion of foreign technology among Amsterdam refiners. They were confronted with the small size of their old refinery buildings, all located in a densely populated part of the town. Only a few managed to create enough room to house steam engines, boilers and vacuum pans. During the 1860s the supply of raw material, cane sugar from the Dutch East Indies, tended to decrease. The refiners then turned to raw beetsugar, of which Germany produced an ever increasing quantity.
After a forced and shortlived attempt under Napoleonic reign to grow sugar beet, the production of raw beet sugar in the Netherlands was resumed in 1858. The first to start a large scale factory were three former Amsterdam refiners who in the past had already demonstrated a broad interest in industrial innovation. By offering high prices, industry could persuade farmers to grow beet, a hitherto unknown crop.
Chapter 8. The development of food producing industries in the Netherlands reflects the increasing internationality of technology. In the past, a brewer, miller or farmer used the craftsmanship of the local blacksmith, cooper or millwright and relied on his own personal experience. In the course of the century, foreign technologies were imported that required an increasing amount of specialised knowledge and skills. Virtually none of the technologies described in this book had been developed in the Netherlands, but everything, from machinery to skilled labour and other experts could be obtained from abroad.
The growth in the scale of production shows how technology, product quality (less perishable goods) and the search for larger, distant markets were interrelated. To some producers, and even more to the growing number of traders between producer and consumer, selling on distant, anonymous markets presented an opportunity for fraud. From the middle of the 19th century onwards, adulterated food became a much debated topic. To protect their interests at home and abroad, industrialists successfully demanded an efficient legislation on trade marks. Where consumers' interests and health were concerned, the government left it to private initiative and local authorities to control food quality.
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