Who we are

Our story began in 1950, in Alkmaar. Jan Willem Dontje (1921–1988) and Geertje Leentje Blank (1927–2010) opened a small wholesale business for bakery ingredients, operating initially from their home. 

The business quickly expanded, moving to Bierkade in Alkmaar, where Geertje began producing chocolate mold work and decorative pieces, marking the beginning of what would become Dobla’s specialty. By the late 1980s, Dobla had grown into a thriving company, now based in Kitmanstraat. When Jan Willem passed away in 1988, his son Arthur Dontje (born 1959) took over the reins of the business.
 

But just a year later, on November 16, 1989, disaster struck: a devastating fire destroyed the factory. What had been built with passion and vision now seemed lost overnight."

Where others might have seen the end, Arthur Dontje saw opportunity. After the fire, he decided to sell the wholesale business, Holland Food Center, and left Alkmaar to start anew. In 1991, a new, larger factory was built in Heerhugowaard, marking the start of a dynamic phase of international growth.

New production sites followed: Kessel in Belgium (1998), Duluth in the United States (2005), and a logistics hub in Meer, Belgium (2006). In 2011, Dobla expanded to Asia with the opening of a factory in Vung Tau, Vietnam, dedicated to hand-crafted chocolate decorations and home to the Dobla Pacific Pastry Academy, a training center for professionals. 

That same year, a tribute to the company’s founders was unveiled in Dobla’s flagship store in Alkmaar, where the portraits of Geertje and Jan Dontje were placed in a position of honor. In 2013, the Dobla Museum was inaugurated at the same site, celebrating the journey that transformed a home-based business into a global leader in chocolate decorations in just over six decades.