In 1752 Egbert Douwes opened a grocery called De Witte Os, the White Ox, in the Dutch town of Joure. In 1780 he handed it to his eldest son, Douwe Egberts, whose name the company still carries, and who narrowed the shop to coffee, tea, and tobacco. In 1925 the firm introduced a red seal with the initials DE as a guarantee of quality, and it named a tobacco brand White Ox after the original store. From 1948 it expanded into Belgium, France, Spain, and Denmark, and in 1968 it created the holding company Royal Douwe Egberts to fund acquisitions.

In 1978 the American Consolidated Foods Corporation, later Sara Lee, bought the company and funded its 1989 takeover of Dutch rival Van Nelle. It sold its tobacco brands to Imperial Tobacco in 1998 and launched the Senseo pod machine with Philips in 2001. In 2007 it sued the province of Groningen over rules requiring EKO organic and Max Havelaar Fairtrade coffee in government purchasing, and lost. Sara Lee spun it off in 2012 as D.E Master Blenders 1753, JAB Holding took it private in 2013 for $9.8 billion, and a 2020 merger with Peet’s created JDE Peet’s.

• Douwe Egberts set up its own coffee and tea sustainability foundation in 2002.
• The Groningen ruling set a precedent letting European governments require Fairtrade products in procurement.
• JAB bought Norway’s Kaffehuset Friele soon after taking the company private.
• EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager approved the 2015 Mondelez coffee merger only after Carte Noire and Merrild went to Lavazza.
• JDE Peet’s brands include Jacobs, Pickwick, Senseo, and Tassimo, with roughly 7 billion euros in annual turnover.