Ice cream manufacturer Pieter Dedert will leave over 2.5 million euros to the Erasmus Trust Fund, the support fund of Rotterdam University. With this gift money can be spent on cancer research at Erasmus University Rotterdam for many years to come.
The Rotterdam ice cream magnate passed away in 2019 at the age of 99. Due to the time involved in settling an estate, the Erasmus Trust Fund can only now announce that he has left a large part of his assets to Erasmus University Rotterdam. The legacy has been placed in the Pieter Dedert Fund, a named fund with the idea that the return on his assets will support cancer research in perpetuity at one of Europe's largest and best-known institutions in this field. His wife Adrie died of cancer in 1994. Pieter Dedert is buried at Charloise Lagedijk in Rotterdam with his wife. The cemetery is a fifteen-minute cycle ride from the spot where the ice skating adventure all began for him and his brother.
As the couple had no children, they had decided that the survivor of the couple would decide where their fortune would go. Pieter Dedert stipulated that it would go to four charities, three of which were in Rotterdam, even though he had lived in Belgium for 45 years. His fortune would mainly go to cancer research.
The Life of Pieter Dedert
As young boys Pieter and his brother inherited the confectionery that their father Willem Dedert had founded in 1918 on the Katendrechtse Lagedijk in Rotterdam-Charlois. They managed to keep the business going during the crisis years and the Second World War, even though they had just graduated from primary school. Due to a slight drop in sales, they decided to produce ice lollies on a small scale in the evenings. Dedert's credo was: 'Especially in a time of slight decline, you have to do business'. This idea took off so well that they decided to expand the production and freezing capacity considerably. Eventually they moved their business to Roermond, because it was more economical to build an ice cream factory there. Dedert IJs still exists and produces water and fruit ice cream. They do this for supermarket chains under private label, but the factory also works for ice cream manufacturers who partly outsource their production.
Dedert's credo was: 'Especially in a time of slight decline, you have to do business'.
After a study trip to the United States, the brothers started producing the two-stick ice lollies in the Netherlands that they had discovered in America. In his family, these lollipops based on lemonade syrup are still affectionately known as 'double lollipops' or 'Uncle Piet's lollipops'.
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The Erasmus Trust Fund is the official support fund of Erasmus University Rotterdam. For more information, please visit www.trustfonds.nl.
