History

Limelco was founded in 1946 as Lilac, a cooperative society formed by a dozen small dairy farms with as its main objective the maximum valorization of milk as a raw produce. This allowed the shareholders of the cooperative society, "the farmers", to make the most of their agricultural enterprises.

Initially, Lilac's core activities consisted of milk collection and the production of butter and milk for the retail market. In the course of the years, new production lines were started up for the manufacturing of fromage frais, ambient desserts and milk powder.

In 1988, Lilac employed 350 workers and achieved a turnover of 62 million euros. Its cumbersome structure, as well as a number of flawed strategic decisions, got Lilac into major trouble in 1993, leading to a drastic restructuring, involving the reduction of its workforce to 43 employees. Immediately after this reorganization, Lilac returned with positive results, stirring the interest of a number of Belgian dairy companies.

Surprisingly though, it was Konings Distillery, active in the liquor trade and also based in Zonhoven, who succeeded in taking over Lilac.

Since the Lilac brand name had been sold to Inza during the company's time of crisis, the company name Lilac also had to be discarded. Limelco was chosen as its replacement. Since then, the company has shown consistent growth in all departments, with a current turnover of more than 75 million euros.