Who we are

Bekina Boots founded in 1962 by Denis Vanderbeke, a shoemaker in the rural village of Kluisbergen. He supplied handmade rubber boots to farmers in Belgium.

Georges Vanderbeke, Denis's son, joins the company. Georges had a business instinct and developed further market expertise with a view to growth and internationalisation. He started up the production of pressed rubber safety boots and set up sales outlets in Western Europe. In doing so, he laid the foundations for the internationalisation of Bekina Boots. In addition, Georges established Bekina Indurub as one of the first manufacturers with injection moulding technology for plastics and rubber. This resulted in a technical, ergonomic and price advantage in the market for slatted bases and ladder pads, among other things. Two focus markets for Bekina Indurub to date.

Georges used his language skills and commercial knowledge and flair to further strengthen Bekina's presence on the international stage. Increased exports of Bekina boots, including outside Europe. He organised the development and expansion of the production of NBC overshoes, supplying the Belgian, Danish and Qatar armies.

As the sole manufacturer of rubber boots in Belgium, Bekina Boots was preparing to celebrate its 25th anniversary. However, it suffered a terrible blow on 24 October 1987. A devastating fire burned down the whole company overnight. Everything was destroyed and had to be rebuilt. Thankfully, all the employees willingly played a part in helping to rebuild the company. Thanks to their hard work and cooperation, Bekina became fully operational again in just eight months. Staffing, production and sales all returned to the same level as before the fire, but within a brand-new company!

Bekina Boots established an even firmer foothold in the heart of rural Flanders with the construction of additional warehouses. Georges took the strategic decision to start manufacturing polyurethane boots, taking another major step forward. POLYURETHANE BOOTS are 40% lighter than rubber or PVC boots, and last three times longer. This decision proved to be a winner.

Where we had previously made rubber compounds for internal use, Georges decided to set up Bekina Compounds as a separate entity. The company specialises in the production of coloured rubber compounds tailored to the customer’s needs. The conscious choice for colour compounds has been there since the outset, always with unique specialist properties. We are the specialist of specialities!

Bekina Boots and sister company Bekina Indurub were growing so fast that Bekina Indurub moved to its own brand-new 5,000 m² production facility.

Thomas Vanderbeke, Georges’ eldest son and the 3rd generation of boot-makers, joined the Bekina team. From the outset, Thomas placed great emphasis on effective marketing, process optimisation and product innovation.

Bekina Boots moved into its brand-new headquarters. This feat of architecture is synonymous with daylight, transparency, comfort and sustainability. The lab with state-of-the-art measuring and testing equipment for daily testing of the quality of our boots guarantees intensive cooperation with accredited test institutes worldwide. The Bekina Compounds lab is also housed here.

The common thread throughout the history of the company is that of the SPIN-OFF activities. The creation of the BeSealed brand was the fourth big success in this regard! BeSealed markets products for the waterproofing of concrete structures in the construction sector. The self-expanding strips are produced by Bekina Compounds. In turn, Bekina Indurub supplies injection moulding products for a variety of complex sealing problems. The integration of all our know-how!

Launch of our own polyurethane compound (Neotane) developed in-house and the innovative processing of this to create NEOTANE TECHNOLOGY - unique to Bekina Boots.

Bekina Boots continues to focus on innovation. For example, every pair of boots is provided with an RFID tag as standard. This ensures the unique identification of each pair of boots with track-and-trace capabilities.

This offers numerous possibilities, including for distributors and end users, from efficient stock management to automatic access control via the work boots.

Bekina Boots, together with its 3 sister companies (Bekina Indurub, Bekina Compounds and Bekina BeSealed), is part of Bekina - a solid Belgian family group of companies that has acquired an international status with super-comfortable safety boots that can be found in more than 58 countries around the globe: from New Zealand to Canada and from Chile to Russia. Today, millions of professionals wear work boots from Bekina Boots in a wide range of sectors throughout the world, including agriculture, fishing, construction and the food industry, as well as for leisure activities! Bekina Boots products can be worn in extreme working conditions - all day and every day - providing users with the safety and comfort they deserve!