In 1923 Piet Hoff, born 19 September 1900 started the company, which now uses the name Hoff Quality First. Piet Hoff grew potatoes, cauliflower, green - and red cabbage and corn. The company was established at Grootebroek, Noord Holland and was a family company. Piet Hoff and his wife and nine children worked together on the fields and slowly built up the company. These were difficult times. The area where the company was established was wet. Each morning at 4 o'clock they went to the fields with a small boat to do the hard manual labor. The start of the company was not easy, because of the Wall Street crash and the crises it caused in the beginning of the thirties, but they managed to survive and slowly the company started to grow.

Around 1950 three of the sons of Piet Hoff decided to continue the company, but they wanted to work more economically. The sailing with the boats to their fields prevented the use of tractors and machinery. Therefore they decided to move the company to a better area, where the fields were directly connected with the farm buildings: the small village of Hem. One of the three sons was Piet Hoff Jr. In 1954 they started to grow the first flower bulb crops: tulips and gladiolus. This was very successful and the company started to expand. There was more money to invest in buildings and machinery. In those times a barn of 30 to 40m2 was considered a big warehouse (!). But in 1956 they already built their first warehouse of 900m2. In their region the company bought the first tractor, a Massey Ferguson. Each year they expanded the company with more machinery, land and constructed warehouses. Many small farmers in the region asked them to do contracting work with the machinery. At the end of the fifties they bought 4 to 6 new tractors each year.

In 1959 a new direction was chosen. In the United States Jan de Graaff, founder of the Oregon Bulb Farms, developed brand new interesting flower bulbs: lilies. Piet Hoff Jr. and his two brothers were amongst the first buyers of these new flower bulbs in Holland. They bought Enchantment, Royal Gold, Sentinel, Imperial Gold, Imperial Silver and Imperial Crimson. Enchantment was a success and the company started an immense development. They constructed 9.000 m2 of glasshouses to produce virus free planting material and in 1960 they already built big cooling storages, for lilies need to be stored at -2°C. In 1963 the three brothers split up and Piet Hoff Jr. started his own company with his wife and eight children. Amongst them three of his sons: Pieter, Mats and Gerard Hoff.

They started to change the company into another direction. The contract work was finished, nor did they grow vegetables. They specialized more in tulips and lilies. In winter they grew tulip flowers. In 1972 the production of tulip flowers was at its highest point: over 2 million flowers were produced in 5000 m2 heated glasshouses and over 5 million bulbs were prepared with complicated temperature treatments for other producers to produce flowers at Christmas. In 1969 Pieter Hoff started to breed ‘asiatic’ lilies (colored lilies without a scent), because lilies created in the United States seemed to have many problems acclimatizing in Holland. There were also only a few colors available: there was no white, pink, red or bicolor in the market. The breeding of the Asiatic lilies was very successful and more greenhouses to produce virus free material were constructed. In 1974 the company built 14.000 m2 and the revenues grew well. Soon the company started to grow their self-developed varieties like Hoff's Glory, Amigos, Asterix etc. Also clones were bought from other breeders and introduced in the market, like La Boheme and Moonflower. But the big success came with a lily which made the company famous: Festival.

Festival was the first bicolored lily in the market and the demand was enormously high. Because of the good sales and high revenues, the company decided to quit growing other crops and focused on lilies only. This decision was taken in 1985.

The decision was, as turned out later, a good strategy. The company started to expand very strongly again and the need of new warehouses became urgent. Also the lily acreage grew strongly and strategic decisions had to be taken. Because lilies are an Autumn crop, the plants are much better suited to be planted in sandy soils. In Autumn there's a lot of rain in Holland and the manual harvest on the heavy clay areas where the company was situated, became impossible. Now that the company had to invest in new ware- and greenhouses, a decision had to be made whether these investments would be done in the clay area, or in another, more manageable place.

A choice was made to expand the company in a sandy area in the south of The Netherlands, near the harbor of Rotterdam (important for export plans). They invested in 6.000 m2 big warehouses, 2.500 m2 cooling storages and 24.000 m2 of greenhouses. A new future started in Steenbergen, on the first of January 1987. Pieter and Gerard Hoff moved with the company to Steenbergen. Mats Hoff, responsible for sales, stayed in Hem in Noord Holland. In 1993 the three brothers decided to split again: Pieter Hoff and Gerard Hoff bought the stocks of Mats Hoff . They continued the work that their grandfather started: to develop a family ruled company that always had the goal: Quality First, only that way leads to a good future!

In 1999 the export of flower bulbs, and specially the export of lily bulbs began to decrease. From 2000 until 2004 the Dutch flower bulb export declined with more than 15%. As a result of this, Hoff Quality First chose another strategy. Pieter Hoff and Gerard Hoff decided to split up in 2004. Gerard Hoff started his own company and Pieter Hoff decided to quit Hoff Quality First, sold the real estate and closed Hoff Beheer Steenbergen BV as per May 31, 2005.

On June 1st 2005 Pieter Hoff started a strategy focusing on innovation. The innovation processes have lead to two new companies: Flowersonline and AquaPro. He also continued with innovation in lilies. He bought the first double oriental lily ever from New Zealand grower John Blay and presented this lily revolution in the market: Miss Lucy. You can see pictures of Miss Lucy on www.hoffqualityfirst.nl and www.hoffgarden.com. Next to his love for innovation, Pieter Hoff’s ambition is to cause the planting of two billion hectares of trees. Read more about this ambition in www.petrushoff.com.