the firm was turned into a public limited company called Droste's Cacao- en Chocoladefabrieken N.V. and by the year 1930 more than 800 employees were working in the factory at the Spaarne. At that time, a group of 25 salesmen was travelling through the Netherlands to promote Droste products to confectionery shops. The brand name's familiarity did not remain limited to the Netherlands as it became increasingly known abroad, resulting in the establishment of Droste offices all over the world such as in London, Paris, Prague, New York, Chicago and Boston. From 1920 until 1940, Droste products were distributed across the world by ships and trains. In 1932, Droste was hit again by a setback, this time due to a stock market crash. As a result, the company was forced to reduce the working week from 48 hours to 42.5 hours. It became worse during the Second World War, when Allied aircraft bombardment caused considerable damage to the company's cardboard department. This led to the rapid decline of production and sales, which eventually stopped altogether. After the war Once again, Droste recovered from the war after 1945 although it took some time to achieve the same level of production and distribution as before the Second World War. Raw materials were still scarce, preventing the company from exporting its products since the desired quality could not be attained. Products were only sold on the home market. This changed five years later, when quality products could once again be supplied to both the home and foreign markets. In the meantime, in 1947, the founder's grandsons Jan and Martinus Droste had been appointed managers. During their leadership the business flourished and by the early 1960s Droste had over 1000 employees. The company exported 40% of the production to 60 different countries, and in 1961 a new cocoa factory was opened. In the year 1964 the company received the "Royal" designation and was renamed to Koninklijke Droste Fabrieken N.V. In this period, most of the production process was automated, reducing the manual labour considerably. In 1975 the company became part of food and tobacco group Van Nelle, after inheritor widow J. van Nelle took over Droste's share capital. With this, the family company was no longer independent. At that time, Van Nelle was jointly owned by the New York company Standard Brands and despite the incorporation of Droste, the Droste brand name continued to