Illustrious past
We are proud of the long history of our family firm. A history that takes us back to 1732. In that year the Austrian ancestor, Johannes Richard Krepel was put in charge of the technical supervision of a copper-mill. The copper-mill was located at a brook where the Head-Office (NL) is situated today. In order to get extra waterpower, Johannes Krepel built a waterfall in the brook, next to the copper mill.
In 1808, his son Bernhard Krepel became the owner of the copper-mill and since that time the company has always stayed in the hands of the family. The waterfall he created to drive the mill still exists, and the Klarenbeek (“clear brook”) which laid behind it gave the village its present name. Bernhard Krepel summarized the economic importance of this waterpower with an enigmatic paradox: “If I have water, I drink wine; if I don’t have water, I drink water.
In the time of Johannes Richard Krepel, copper sheet was used on a large scale to cover the bottoms of wooden ships. But after the discovery that steel ships could also float, the demand for copper diminished. It was the enterprising Everhard Krepel who, in the second half of the nineteenth century, set out to look for new ways for the firm to return a profit. The rising market for cigars caught his attention and this formed the basis for what became a flourishing enterprise with a factory in Poland and sales offices in both Poland and the Netherlands. From these countries, the company serves the whole European market.