Cor Rijken Verpakkingen

In 1990, Cor Rijken founded a company under his own name, which in time grew to the current all-round packaging company with a workforce of 35. The firm’s speciality is the design and production of bags with a personalized imprint, but it also has a wide, standard range. With an average stock of about 35 million bags at its base in Lieren, goods can be delivered very quickly, often the next day. 200 million bags find their way every year to customers.

Ideas room

Cor Rijken delivers these products to both the wholesale and food & chocolate industries. The company is committed to a long-term relationship with its customers. Cor Rijken: “We see the customer as our guest and we put our heads together to develop innovative concepts. In our offices, we have therefore set up a special ‘ideas room’.  It’s in the ideas room that we work with the customer to design the packagingthat will make the firm successful. After all, the supermarket is a huge showcasewhere you have to stand out from the crowd.”

Own initiative

Rijken acknowledges that the company actively approaches customers, offering to package their products. “For three years running a Finnish entrepreneur visited our stand at a trade fair. Yet quotations did not produce any orders. During a holiday in Finland, I saw the entrepreneur’s products in the supermarket. As a result, new and better packaging was designed, we sent a picture of the new-look packaging and this was sufficient to get the order.”.

Foreign markets

Foreign markets differ significantly from the Dutch market. Cor Rijken has been active abroad for a long time: “Each country has its own culture and this is reflected in the packaging. For example, in the Netherlands we usually work with transparent packaging: Dutch people want to see what they are buying. However in Germany this is not done. Each country has its peculiarities, which you need to delve into deeply.

“The export share of our turnover is now 40%, a percentage that is rising every year. Partly thanks to our export, we have been able to increase annual growth by 2 digits, which we expect to continue in the coming years.”

Export countries: 45, including most countries in Western Europe, a large part of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, China, Australia and New Zealand.