The Van Bommel shoe factory ran a small grocery shop next to the factory premises until 1915. In this shop, the whole village could do their groceries. However, the shop was mainly designed to foster the forced shopping that Van Bommel imposed on its employees.

Forced shopping meant that salaries were paid partly in cash and partly in goods or vouchers. Usually, these vouchers could only be redeemed in the company shop. At Van Bommel, this was the case.

(Image below: The Van Bommel company shop sold “miraculous cloister balm”.)

In the grocery shop, Van Bommel sold groceries and other daily necessities. We found ads in old regional newspapers in which Van Bommel advertised manufactured goods (textile goods), colonial goods (spices) and a “Miraculous Cloister Balm”. According to the ad, the cloister balm alleviated “rheumatism, burns and cuts, bruises, stiffness, muscle strains, old and new wounds, skin diseases, and so on and so forth”.

Goods at company shops were often more expensive than in regular shops. According to the employer, forced shopping was an extra service they offered their employees. In reality, it was a serious form of economic exploitation. In 1909, forced shopping was banned by law.

(Image above: A ‘polite recommendation’ for manufactured (textile goods) and colonial goods (spices) sold by Van Bommel in its company shop. From the 1899 Moergestel Kermiscourant Gazette.)