 Océ started in 1877 as a family business manufacturing machines for coloring butter and margarine.The company's founder, chemist Lodewijk van der Grinten, supplied this coloring to farmers and then this was supplied to the margarine factories of Jurgens and Van den Bergh.In 1930, the margarine factories of Jurgens and Van den Bergh and the English Lever Brothers merged to become Unilever.