Jacobus Verkade (29 March 1906,

Zaandam Zaandam () is a city in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is the main city of the municipality of Zaanstad and received City rights in the Netherlands, city rights in 1811. It is located on the river Zaan ...

– 26 June 2008, Holten) was the grandson of Ericus Verkade, founder of the

Verkade Royal Verkade (Dutch: Koninklijke Verkade) is a Dutch manufacturing company, owned by a Turkish conglomerate. The company is headquartered in Zaandam and was one of the oldest existing family companies in the Netherlands. In November 2014, the com ...

manufacturing company. He specialized in sales and marketing and was responsible for, for instance, the packaging of Verkade cookies in metal tins, which quickly became collector's items. Co Verkade began working for the company in 1924. In 1936, he and his four brothers (Frans, Arnold, Jan, and Tom) ran the company; Co was a company director until December 1960, when he was ousted by his brother Frans; he continued to work for the company until 1965. Co Verkade is credited with making Verkade a household name in the Netherlands. One of his successful marketing ploys was the ''Verkade album''; customers received a picture card with every roll of Verkade

rusk A rusk is a hard, dry Biscuit#Biscuits in British usage, biscuit or a twice-baked bread. It is sometimes used as a teether for babies. In some cultures, rusk is made of cake rather than bread: this is sometimes referred to as cake rusk. In the ...

which they glued into albums. These albums were on topics such as history, art, and especially nature--the latter written by Dutch botanist Jac. P. Thijsse. Generating a collecting mania among the Dutch population before

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, 27 albums were made, a total of 3.2 million copies. At age 101, Co Verkade drove the first pile for the Verkade pavilion at the Zaans Museum. He married Maja Knipscheer in 1929. After she died, in 1980, he lived with Ien, until her death in 2002. In 2005 he published an autobiography, ''Een leven in biskwie en chocolade'' ("A life in biscuits and chocolate").

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