SINGING AND A LOT OF WAFFLE
WHEN Kees Huysmans ended up in Wales “by accident” the plan was to become a farmer. Instead he joined a choir, became a fluent Welsh speaker, won a major prize at the National Eisteddfod and started a world-conquering waffle company.
“I wanted to be a farmer but I did not want to farm in Holland,” the 60-year-old Tregroes Waffles boss said.
“I tried to go to the south of France but I could not hack the heat and the steep hills.
“I had been to Poland when it was communist and loved it, but I could not go to live there. “And I didn’t want to go to Scandinavia.” The dad of two had relatives in Canada but that wasn’t for him either.
“I went west and, by accident, I ended up in Wales,” Kees, from a village named Sterksel, said.
“I was far enough away from my mum to not run the risk of going back.
“And then I found I quite liked it. In Ceredigion there is no traffic.”
Once here Kees discovered the Welsh language.
He decided that, to be part of the community, he should learn it.
Lessons were no use. Kees wanted to be submerged in the language but when people heard his accent they would switch to English.
“I didn’t want to learn it as an academic thing, I wanted to learn it as a social thing, so I joined clubs,” he said.
“But the minute I opened my mouth and they heard I was a learner they would start speaking English.” So he joined a choir. “At first they told me ‘ you have a good voice but it is a pity you cannot sing’,” Kees said. As he practised he got better. “You go back to the same songs week after week after week,” he said.
“You learn the noises and then you learn the meaning and that is how it happens.”
“One of the boys told me I had a good voice and that I should get lessons,” Kees said.
“Years later I thought maybe I could have a luxury in life and started to go to lessons.”
He became so accomplished that in 2016 he won the prestigious blue ribbon singing prize at the National Eisteddfod in Abergavenny.
“I started to compete because singing for your own pleasure is one thing, but it is quite a thrill to be performing for people,” he said.
His hopes of becoming a farmer were dashed when he realised it was not economically viable with just three acres.
In 1983 he started selling waffles out of “desperation”.
“When I came here it was 1981 and Maggie Thatcher was in power,” Kees said.
“There were no jobs and there was no money. There was no paint on the outside of houses and the most valuable thing in Ceredigion was rusty corrugated iron sheets.
“You could survive in spring and summer but in the winter you could not. “And that is why I started making waffles.” He was “naive and young” and “could not think of anything better”.
“I bought a waffling iron and that is how we started off,” he said.
“I made a £200 investment. We had a little van to sell from in the villages and I made a market stall from some wood.” Kees expected to “be able to sell a few”. “They would buy them and I would have to warn them, because I saw people getting tears in their eyes and they would experience emotions they had not had before,” he said. “It’s all about pleasure.” People would be banging on his door at all hours begging him for waffles.
“The demand became bigger and bigger,” Kees said.
“It was difficult because we were making them as a cottage industry.” They decided to expand. “I had to go to work instead of live my life,” Kees said.
“It has served us well. Sometimes life takes you one way and that is the way it takes you.”
Now Tregroes Waffles are sold in Fortnum & Mason, Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and Waitrose.
They are exported from their Llandysul factory to the US.
Hundreds of mail order customers get in touch for Christmas waffle parcels. For “quality control” Kees eats one a day. “You can have all the systems in the world but there is nothing that beats tasting,” he said.