Family business

Our island URK is already mentioned in a document dated from the year 968. It used to be a swell of boulder clay in the Dutch Zuyder Zee. At the highest point the village of the same name was established. The people of Urk made a living out of fishing.
 

The land reclamation projects in the Netherlands had huge consequences for Urk. The Zuyder Zee was blocked off and suddenly we were situated in a lake. A few years later impoldering made us part of the mainland.

The people of Urk, however, remained focussed on the sea. By hard work Urk managed to expand its fishing fleet to be the largest of the Netherlands. A third of the fish supplied in the Netherlands goes through our fish auction. And 2,000 of our fellow-villagers and other people from the region are employed with the approximately 70 fish-processing companies in Urk. Urk is fish.

The dangers of the sea, the poverty of the ancient fishermen and the sense of the vanity of men must have contributed greatly to religious life in Urk. Today, we still are a closely-knit, conscientious and zealous community. 

Our grandparents were fishermen, but my brother Herman and I started to work in a fish-processing company after leaving school. After a couple of years, at an early age, we were charged with the management of this cooperation. When the company was sold, we started our own business: NEERLANDIA-URK BV.
 
Now, over thirty years later, we are responsible for more than 150 employees, including our seven children. 

Albert Romkes