Jules Thys was born on March 27, 1937, the second youngest descendant of a peasant family. During the war years, father Thys himself baked bread for his family. Jules still remembers that they (the children) were allowed to pick one apple each in the garden during the apple season. With this, father baked an apple bread. Jules was so fascinated by this that he did not move a thumb wide from his father, to be able to follow the entire process from A to Z. The baker's microbe undoubtedly caught him already. In the vocational school of Lier, Jules studied mechanics. With this diploma in his pocket, he started working at "De Beuckelaer" (now better known as LU) and the "Geerts" company, also a biscuit manufacturer. age to production manager. The baker's microbe turned out to be a persistent virus, because Jules married Simone, the daughter of a bread and pastry chef. To be able to work as a baker's guest with his father-in-law, he resigned from the Geerts company. But he soon realized that he actually had more in store. And as a driven and experienced mechanic, he managed to put together a waffle oven. In his spare time, he baked wafers for market vendors, schools and shops. He then processed around 2000 kg of dough per week. BISCUITERIE THIJS was a fact! The taste of the waffles was such that he could not continue to meet the demand with his small oven. In 1974 he built a factory in his garden, in which he placed a first semi-automatic waffle oven. Both the two production lines, the packaging and the storage space found their place in the building of approx. 400 m². The sale of waffles continued to rise and the factory in the garden soon became too small. In order to be able to expand further and to anticipate further growth, Jules bought a piece of land in 1981 on the “Klein Gent” industrial estate in Herentals A 1,850 m² building was erected here, naturally equipped with new and more efficient production lines. From a factory in the garden to 8000 square meters In the following years, the building was systematically expanded, so that in the 1990s the surface of the company had already risen to around 8,000 m². Meanwhile, Jules handed over the torch to his four children Lieve, Jan, Marjan and Katrien. With the same enthusiasm as their father, they manage the daily operation of this family business pur-sang in the right direction.
