About De Drie Mollen
Like any good story, it’s important to start at the beginning. In 2012, Drie Mollen UK Limited, former a dormant company, was re-activated as an evergreen family investment platform in commodities. De Drie Mollen Holding Company was formed as a partner-led investment firm, with capital placed under the holding company. Defined by flexibility and not by exit-pressures, De Drie Mollen primarily makes direct investments or large-scale co-investments in evergreen commodity businesses with growth potential, providing management teams, founders and entrepreneurs with long-term capital, industry-leading private equity experience and operational expertise. Because of our great heritage in coffee and chocolate, it made sense to start here.
The high-quality coffee and chocolate we all love is getting harder and harder to grow. Especially for the small farmers that make up the majority of the world’s producers. They’re dealing with rising production costs, weather change and diseases like coffee rust and black pot that can devastate an entire crop and causing significant pod losses of up to 30% and killing up to 10% of the trees annually.
To better understand these challenges, and how to help these farmers, we put itself in their shoes. In 2013, De Drie Mollen Holding bought its first coffee farm and cocoa plantations in Antioquia and Valle del Cauca, Colombia and subsequently farms in Dominica. We have a deep sense of fairness that extends to our farmers, our customers and future generations.
De Drie Mollen Holding Company has a diverse team of professionals with a clear understanding and appreciation of the next generation of consumers as well as a strong focus on ESG and superior risk-adjusted compounded returns.
Our Managing Partners oversee the investments with a single and fully aligned investment strategy. Investment decisions always require unanimity of the Managing Partners. We have investment offices in London, Luxembourg (Headquarters), Madrid and Sao Paulo.
Today we are a Luxembourg-based regulated investment fund with institutional investors, family offices, endowments and other professional investors.
The mission of the farms isn’t to supply us with coffee and cacao. It’s to help ensure the future of coffee and cacao — for everyone.
We also started to invest in roasting and retailing coffee and confectionery again. A contract to deliver coffee and to make chocolate for the British army kick-started expansion. With a buy and build strategy on growing Food service and Private label, we first moved the Trading Offices and the Headquarters to Geneva, Switzerland, to later establish the headquarters and parent company in Luxembourg. A huge step forward for us was the acquisition of a large minority shareholding in Varlhona and Savencia Gourmet.
Today we remain a proud fourth-generation family business where our expertise has been passed down from one generation to the next,
Our family owners have been instrumental in building a once small family business to the heights of success it enjoys today. Their intuition and entrepreneurial flair have been integral to the shaping of the pure coffee industry in the Netherlands and Europe.
Not only can we count ourselves a family business through ownership, but also through our dedicated staff. Many of our employees work side by side with siblings, cousins, parents and grandparents.
Everywhere in the world people enjoy our coffee and delicious chocolate. This chocolate is still made according to the old (secret) family recipe. While the chocolate didn’t change, the world did. The 4th generation of our company puts extra focus on social responsibility. Together with the non-profit organizations, we purchase 100% sustainable cocoa and coffee and try to offer the farmers a better future. We have also made our packaging sustainable. All this while preserving the excellent quality and delicious flavour of our products.
Long Standing Partnerships
We are proud to have fostered long-standing relationships with our customers, and in partnership with them, we contribute to the growth of both their businesses and our own. Together we encourage one of the most developed specialty coffee markets in the world to flourish.
“This hands-on approach, combined with a highly advanced distribution network, global warehousing and fulfilment capabilities, a dedicated sales force and an award winning marketing department, all contribute to De Drie Mollen proudly standing as a highly visible and successful business. Furthermore, it is widely acknowledged that our roasting facilities are of the most sophisticated in Europe, roasting the finest quality beans sourced from producers the world over” – Bo van der Putten
Jan Niessen