Around 1925, Cornelius steps down so his sons Dirk, Maarten and Johannes could take over the company with fresh energy. The brothers managed to survive the dire crisis years in the thirties as well as the meagre years of the Second World War, when milk and cheese were a rare and expensive treat.

Around this time, cheese markets were springing up around Gouda. Farmers in the area had started to switch from crop to dairy farming and the new markets meant they could sell their cheese on a weekly basis. The cheese trade became a booming business and Cornelius Veldhuyzen built a bigger warehouse.

Cornelius got them their good prices, and his trading business flourished. He became known as a reliable businessman. A fast learner, Cornelius soon discovered that cheese was cheap in summer and expensive in winter. An excellent reason to build his first warehouse in 1884, after which he started buying cheese in summer and selling it in winter. Cornelius was very successful and he eventually sold his boats to focus solely on cheese.

Authenticity, tradition and craftsmanship – the ‘new’ values of today – have been at the heart of Veldhuyzen Cheese for over a century. As a small family business, Veldhuyzen has been trading cheeses produced by farmers in its region since the 1880s.
Mr Cornelius Veldhuyzen, our founder, could have stayed content with sailing his two barges around Holland, transporting all sorts of goods from A to B. But then local farmers started asking him to ship their cheese to Amsterdam and sell it to traders at a good price. Around 1875, big cheese factories or markets did not exist, which made it difficult for individual farmers to sell their goods.