Donate Archives

We welcome donations of artefacts or records from members of the public. 

Please note, no documents will be accepted from outside the company without clear and valid title of ownership

We take in several donations every year from members of the public, below are some examples.

90-year-old De Nederlandsche Oliefabriek in Delft quartet of cards  

We receive several gifts from families of former Unilever employees and customers. We are very proud that they are thinking of us and want to donate valuable items to our historical archive. I want to show you one of these gifts.

These quartet cards were created by NOF (De Nederlandsche Oliefabriek) in Delft and are around 90 years old. They are beautiful and in good condition! For this quartet game they used images of the exterior and interior of the NOF building. Next to that there are images of the raw materials they used for production. We think that the quartet game was used for marketing purposes between 1910 and 1926 because around that time NOF used cookbooks and crossword puzzles for their marketing. As you can see there is a great history behind the NOF.

The ever-growing margarine industry at the end of the nineteenth century led to the foundation in 1883 of De Nederlandsche Oliefabriek (N.O.F.) in Delft. In 1884 it started producing groundnut oil, until then almost exclusively sourced from France. 

Since 1885, the CEO was the well-known social pioneer entrepreneur J.C. van Marken (1845-1906). In the beginning things didn’t go well financially. To overcome the difficulties, it was decided to associate itself with a similar company in France on January 1, 1898: the firm E. Calvé & Cie. in Bordeaux, founded 1868. An important milestone in the history of the company. Jurgens was one of the oldest customers of the Fransch-Hollandsche Oliefabrieken Nouveaux Etablissements Calvé-Delft N.V On October 10, 1899, 100,000 kilograms of groundnut oil Rufisque Extra, raw material for margarine, was purchased by contract. This contract was renewed in 1903. Especially during the First World War, Jurgens bought a lot of oil from Delft. 

In 1919 Anton Jurgen started negotiations with Calvé in Paris with the aim of establishing a form of cooperation. These negotiations were unsuccessful. The board meeting of Jurgens on July 14, 1924 in Nijmegen decided to approach Calvé again. This led to price agreements, which, however, turned out not to be feasible in practice because competition was now going to place orders abroad. Calvé's main products were oils and fats, coconut fat, soybean oil, salad oil, vegetable fat and stock cakes. Calvé had eleven companies. The Calvé group also included margarine factories in Germany and Czechoslovakia, oil factories in the Netherlands (Delft), Belgium and France, a raw materials company in Africa and an export trade. 

The years after 1924 were not flourishing. Forced by adversity, Calvé approached the Margarine Unie, which was eager to take over this not insignificant competitor. Anton, Sam van den Bergh and Paul Rijkens held talks with Messrs Waller van Calvé. The result was a complicated agreement. A new company was formed for the Exploitation of Oil Factories Calvé-Delft. The Union acquired all of the capital. Calvé was transferred to the Union on January 1, 1928. In 1930 it was merged into Unilever. 

Shellac advertising records for Pepsodent 

One of the most fascinating new additions to the archives came to us from a gentleman whose late father spent his career working in advertising for the JWT agency. He inherited two shellac advertising records for Pepsodent which he hoped would find a safe home with us. They date back to the 1950s which was interesting to us, as commercial radio did not come to the UK until 1973. He explained that rather than being radio jingles, these adverts were in fact created to be played during half-time at football matches.

Companies would buy a few minutes of airtime and when the whistle blew, crowds of football fans would be treated to the admen's latest works. This was the first anyone in the archives team had heard of such a scheme and as such we were more than delighted to accept this gentleman's kind gift.