HISTORY

The history of Van Riel dates back as far as 1875 when the first generation started a plant where rags were picked, sorted by fabric and colour, torn and pulled. The company was located at this time in the Northern part of the Antwerp province. Afterwards the company was relocated in Borgerhout, a suburb of Antwerp where it continued its rag and cloth activity until after the second world war. The company suffered severely from the poor post war economical activities and when Louis Van Riel (who then formed the third generation) moved the business to Lokeren in the province of East Flanders, he had to start the business all over again and look for new business activities besides the one that he still ran, namely rags and cloths.

Together with both his sons Jean and Andre, who joined the company in the early 1960's Louis Van Riel first introduced a brand new process on the wool. He stripped the dyestuff colour off All-wool carpet thread waste produced by the Belgian carpet factories. The end product (an white All-wool thread waste) was then sold to spinners who blended this product in as a price reducing component.

In the early 1970’s Van Riel was approached by companies with the question to depigment grey rabbit hair and this became the beginning of another activity for which Van Riel is still known today, namely the depigmentation of all kinds of animal fibres such as wool, cashmere, yak, alpaca, etc. The factory, situated in the very centre of Lokeren, soon became too small and also due to ecological ruling Van Riel decided to move out of the city centre and look for a location in an industrial area.

In 1982, Jean and Andre Van Riel, bought a mill in Temse and transformed it into the needs and standards of the company. All activities were moved step by step, and when finally the administration moved to Temse in 1989, the relocation was complete. At this time the company name changed from L. Van Riel to N.V. Van Riel.

The site in Temse is located alongside the motorway E17, exactly in the middle of Antwerp and Ghent (both 20 miles away), and in the close proximity of Brussels (30 miles), and last but not least the port of Antwerp (15 miles).

When Andre's sons Alain and Didier joined the company in 1992 and 1994 respectively, the fifth generation of Van Riel was set in place.

From all the original activities only the depigmentation has remained. During the last decade, however, Van Riel has not stood still and has been diversifying every year. Today we offer a wide variety of treatments such as:

· feltstop

· flock dyeing on wool, synthetic fibres and vegetable fibres

· depigmentation

· bleaching

· de-dusting, blending and baling

· woolen balls for filling

· trading

· fibre recycling

The most recent development is the installation of a new line for the processing of shrinkproof wool (feltstop).