MERBA
The origin of the name is in general Dutch and it represents a combination of two words - MER after the river on whose banks the company's first factory in the Netherlands is located and BA is an abbreviation of the words bakery in the Dutch language. Today, the factory is located in Oosterhout in the heart of a pastoral nature reserve on an area of 50 thousand square meters.
Already in 1932 as a family enterprise of the Bowerman family for the production of traditional Dutch butter cookies. The idea to produce chocolate chip cookies was born after one of the boys returned from a trip to the USA in the late 1980s and brought samples with him.\
The development people hurried to implement the idea and gave birth to the crispy texture of the cookie that is still sold today and contains 37% Belgian chocolate. Only this year did the company agree to produce cookies with the texture Softer and less crispy.
The MERBA factory is considered technologically advanced and the production of the cookies is carried out without human contact from start to finish. The raw materials are also transported to the production line by robotic forklifts. The factory has four production lines, each of which is responsible for 40,000 cookies per hour in more than ten different flavors and textures.
MERBA cookies are sold in more than eighty countries in the world and also in Israel. These days, as mentioned, it marks two decades of activity in Israel.
Although the brand is not considered strong and well-known in the economy, its market share in the premium cookie category amounts to 20%. Among the chocolate chip cookies, it is already considered a type of monopoly with a market share of 70%.
The Israelis adopted the blue color of the packaging and learned to recognize it quickly. Yes, the name has not yet been fully absorbed, but MERBA has the generic name in Israel: "chocochips cookies", "the blue cookies" or "the cookie with 37% chocolate".
The best proof of the warm and delicious treatment they receive is the fact that MERBA cookies occupy a permanent place in the list of the ten best-selling products in the IDF, together with drinks and cigarettes.