Douwe Egberts
Douwe Egberts is the main brand name for D.E Master Blenders 1753, a multinational tea and coffee company operating out of the Netherlands. It was founded in Joure in the Netherlands by Egbert Douwes in 1753 as The White Ox (De Witte Os) a general grocery shop, which later developed into a company dealing in coffee, tea, and tobacco. By 1925 it had changed its name to Douwe Egberts (as in Douwe, the son of Egbert), and had introduced the red seal as its logo. The company expanded through Europe, acquiring other tea, coffee and tobacco companies, such as the UK tea distributor Hornimans, until it was taken over by the Sara Lee Corporation in 1978. The tobacco interests, Van Nelle and Drum rolling tobacco, were sold to Imperial Tobacco in 1998, then in 2001 the company in collaboration with Philips produced the Senseo coffee maker system. With profits from the coffee division under threat from rivals such as Nestlé and Kraft, and being unable to find a buyer, in 2012 Sara Lee split off the coffee division into D.E Master Blenders 1753, offering share-holders one share in the new company for each main share they held. The main Sara Lee company changed name to Hillshire Brands. In 2013 German investor group Joh. A. Benckiser made an offer to purchase D.E Master Blenders 1753 for $9.8 billion.
