What started in an attic room has now, 20 years later, grown into a company with 150 employees. They were ahead of the health trends and managed to put Vitaminstore on the map throughout the Netherlands. Did they have a good crystal ball and see this coming, or were they very lucky?
Firstly, congratulations! What does this anniversary mean to you?
K: “It’s a moment to reflect on 20 years of history, during which we’ve experienced an incredible amount. We started as two young twenty-somethings and have now realised a large part of our dreams and ambitions. That gives a super proud feeling!”
A: “I’m proud of what we’ve built over 20 years. We literally started in an attic room and the first store in Amsterdam Osdorp was a huge step for us. Now we do our best to make a difference for everyone who works at Vitaminstore, as well as for our customers whom we help to lead a healthier life with high-quality products and personal advice.”
My wife sometimes says, "you two seem like you're married."
How did it all begin?
K: “Alain is the brother of my best friend from secondary school. With him, I had a small textile printing business during my studies at the HEAO. Together we had various stalls on Queen’s Day and grew bigger every year. This was the foundation of our friendship.”
A: “Koert and I indeed started as friends and are still best mates. We complement each other well, and that’s how the idea for Vitaminstore came about. I had the knowledge of vitamins and healthy living was my passion, Koert was the son of a successful entrepreneur and knew a lot about trade and retail.”
K: “Alain and I eventually started a wholesale business in sports nutrition under the name Innovital and in 1998 we opened our first Vitaminstore!”
A: “In the early years, the wholesale activities were larger than the retail activities. We mainly sold supplements to health specialty shops and we packaged these ourselves at the kitchen table.”
How were dietary supplements viewed at the time of your first store?
K: “The ideas people had about ‘vitamin pills’ varied greatly, but it was mostly new and strange.”
Vitaminstore emerged long before the health trends we know today. Did you foresee this or was it a stroke of luck?
A: “We already had the vision that health would become increasingly important. At that time, it was mainly about health in combination with environmental pollution and poor lifestyle and eating habits. We were also influenced by our trip to Los Angeles in 1997 where we attended the world’s largest health fair. That opened our eyes to the importance of good health and what you can contribute to it. At that time, we saw a huge divide between the super healthy Americans and the rest of the people who often had a lot of excess weight and consequently various health problems.”
What does Vitaminstore stand for?
K: “Alain is a movement scientist and due to his scientific view on things, we have traditionally been a company with a lot of knowledge about high-quality and innovative ingredients and products. Additionally, our employees are selected based on education and passion for the field. They possess an enormous amount of knowledge.”
A: “You can see that knowledge reflected in the advice we give to customers and in the high-quality products we sell. It stems from a genuine interest in our customer’s health and the desire to help them as best as possible.”
What has been the most special moment in your career?
A: “Actually, there are quite a few because both Koert and I are entrepreneurs who go by instinct. Then you notice that many beautiful and special things come your way, one of which was the acquisition of ‘Body Vitaal’; a big step.”
K: “At the end of 2006, we developed a merger plan together with our competitor ‘Body Vitaal’. After a period of intensive preparations, ‘Body Vitaal’ suddenly went bankrupt. We managed to find an investor within a week and took over ten stores from ‘Body Vitaal’. In one fell swoop, we had 17 stores and became a real retail chain!”
What makes you get out of bed every day for Vitaminstore?
K: “Those who are healthy can take on the world, and we want to make people healthy and happy every day with our beautiful products. Additionally, we remain motivated because we are building something beautiful.”
A: “We have been growing continuously for 20 years, and building a company challenges you every day and you learn more every day. It makes you a richer person and that gives us both a lot of satisfaction!”
On 8 April 1998, you opened your first store, what was that like?
K: “That was very special! We wondered if anyone was waiting for vitamins. That dive into the deep and the step into the unknown made this first store so special.”
A: “During the renovation of this store in Amsterdam Osdorp, someone came by who wondered what kind of store it would be. When he heard it was a store specialised in dietary supplements, he immediately said, ‘oh, that won’t work, you’ll be gone in six months.’ Fortunately, we now know better!”
Did this first store have the most special opening?
K: “This was certainly a milestone in our career, but for me, the most special opening was that of the Beethovenstraat in Amsterdam, about 5 years ago. This was the first store with a juice bar and it was a huge success from day one!”
A: “For me, it was the opening of Vitaminstore Leidschendam. The first flagship store in our new concept. You could feel that everything was right: the cheerful colours, our new logo! And it turned out to be.”
What was it like when vitaminstore.nl was launched?
A: “At the time, it was a big question mark whether the website would ever generate revenue. Building an e-commerce website was very costly back then. Fortunately, advertising was also very straightforward; pay for a link on startpagina.nl and the visitors would come automatically. That’s very different now, behind our webshop is a whole team of specialists.”
K: “In the beginning, we also wrote online orders on a giro transfer form. We personally took the packages to a post office counter where they were franked, we can hardly imagine that now.”
What do you think your colleagues find funny about you?
A: Alain laughs, “I think Koert can give very long speeches and that I can sometimes be a bit blind to the business. For example, I once developed an ‘energy drink powder’, called Keffertje and thought we’d conquer the Netherlands with it. Unfortunately, no one understood it, and the entire stock expired.”
What is your division of roles?
K: “As a child of a retail family, I focus most on the stores, the staff, and the finances. Alain has traditionally been more focused on the product and the internet. Mainly due to his interest in innovation.”
A: “As a movement scientist, I look very critically at products. The assortment in the stores is therefore more my domain. I have also been working with computers since my studies (1987) and I am very interested in innovation. Koert is really a people manager and gets people on board with decisions. He has managed to achieve important things like securing beautiful retail spaces in good locations. He also has a thing for numbers. In almost everything, he immediately forms the financial picture and can quickly determine whether something is interesting or not.”
What do you appreciate about each other?
K: “Alain is in many ways my opposite, but we share the ambition for the growth of our company. Alain is very innovative, technically skilled, an academic know-it-all with a good helicopter view. I also greatly value his visionary input!”A: “Koert has a very strong intuition and a tremendous drive to get things done. He always stays in control and has a keen sense of what is and isn’t possible. He can also empathise very well with others. Furthermore, he doesn’t care much about material things or status and can intensely enjoy being with his friends.”
