AI is having a growing impact on many areas of life, including retail – both in what customers can see and what goes on behind the scenes. Ahold Delhaize is leveraging the technology to improve the customer experience, empower associates and fight food waste. We talked to Sjoerd Holleman, member of the Board of Directors of Albert Heijn, responsible for Product, AI and Specialty Brands, and head of the team leading the global AI focus areas across the Group, and Noortje van Genugten, VP Product Operations for Albert Heijn, about how it’s already changing the way we work and what the future holds for AI in retail. 

1. When implementing a new AI project, there’s a big difference between a successful pilot and something that can successfully scale. What have you learned about how to get that transition right? 

Sjoerd: “The most important thing is to start small but with the end goal in mind. If you have your prerequisites early on, you can steer in that direction. We start pilots in one or two stores, and as soon as they prove successful, we start adding to that and seeing how we can scale. We'd rather fail fast but also scale fast. 

“One thing we’ve built at Albert Heijn that has been incredibly helpful in translating business needs to successful projects is our Product Organization. It sits between tech and the business, acting as an ‘architect’ between the needs of the business and the talented engineers that actually build the projects to address them.” 

Noortje: “We always want to build things that deliver value to our P&L, help us meet sustainability targets or help improve the customer or associate experience. Our Product Organization helps us get the most return on value from our tech resources and budgets by translating business needs and challenges to technical applications that can actually be built. And then it manages how the tech teams deliver so that what they build really meets the needs of our colleagues or our customers.”
 

2. Over 80,000 colleagues are already using Albert Heijn’s recently launched AI assistant for associates – initiating more than 50,000 conversations a week. What did it take, organizationally, to reach that level of adoption?  

Noortje: “Before we build anything, we want to understand what associates are looking for and what problems they need to solve. So, before building the AI assistant, we rolled out a test app that used human power on the backend instead of AI. Associates could ask questions and our team answered them as quickly as possible. We found most questions had to do with products – their location in the store, in-stock level, price, promotions – so we focused on that as our use case and soon got 250,000 requests every month!  

“The road to success is really understanding what's going on in associates’ work and not making assumptions. I have some funny stories about that. While we trained the AI assistant extensively before launch, we didn’t realize how the youngest generation of colleagues – a large part of our store associate group – would talk in one-word sentences. This posed some challenges. For example, the Dutch word for onion is “ui” – which the AI translated to “user interface”! You can imagine what happened when they typed “Dubai” instead of “Where can I find Dubai chocolate?” Also – we thought associates would want a voice-activated app rather than having to type, but our young colleagues saw that as the most awkward thing ever. Luckily, we asked them before we built it!” 

3. Is it making a difference for associates? 

Sjoerd: “Yes, it’s had a positive effect so far. Associates feel empowered because they can actually answer questions themselves. Customers are happier because they’re served more quickly. And managers now have time to focus on other areas of their work. So, it's really been a win-win-win!”  

4. Sjoerd, you help to oversee AI for both the group and a local brand. How do you build shared infrastructure and knowledge across Ahold Delhaize without steamrolling the local context that makes each brand unique? 

Sjoerd: “When we work together across the group, our first priority is to get the right people together to share knowledge, so we don’t reinvent the wheel. While the brands are very different, we’re also similar – we deal with stores, products and people – so it’s helpful to share experiences about what enabled each brand to create the most value or save the most time or money.  

“The next step is to share infrastructure and platforms where possible because this doesn’t affect the local customer experience. If we have a platform that works, why not use it more broadly? To this end, we’re building an adaptive, LLM-agnostic platform where developers across Ahold Delhaize can work and run AI applications together. It is pretty industry leading and should give us a competitive advantage. 

“Our next step will be to move into creating domain visions – thinking about, for example, what merchandising will look like in the future, what will be the role of AI, what's our vision on that and how do we work towards it – and then share those domain visions with each other.” 

5. What is the AI application you're most proud of that people outside of the company probably don't know about? 

Sjoerd: “We always talk about our employee and customer assistants, which we’re very proud of. But there are other applications operating behind the scenes that really make an impact. One great example came out of our yearly hackathon at Albert Heijn, where all our technology people – product owners, data science & analytics and tech engineers – come together and spend 24 hours working and sleeping in the office, focused on solving difficult challenges. They often come up with ideas that we actually deploy.  

“Two years ago, the hackathon group created an AI layer that can sit between our systems and our customer app and automatically translate everything in the app to another language. With 1.2 million non-native Dutch speakers in the Netherlands, this is very helpful! Doing all these translations could have cost millions of euros, but our teams built the AI tool in 24 hours and could deploy it at hardly any cost. So now we offer our app in languages like Turkish, Polish, French and English – we keep adding more – which allows us to be inclusive and help many more customers. It really opened my mind about how AI can help us think out-of-the-box.” 
 

“Two years ago, the hackathon group created an AI layer that automatically translates everything in the app to another language. With 1.2 million non-native Dutch speakers in the Netherlands, this is very helpful!” 

6. Is it hard to convince people with a lot of retail experience to trust an AI model? And can you give me an example of how the AI replenishment forecasts are making a difference? 

Noortje: “We started with our first simple forecasts back in 2003 and then made the switch to automatic replenishment after that, which has reduced waste and increased product availability. 

“One thing we’ve learned is that it’s important to put as much effort into communication as developing the tools, to ensure that people understand the benefits and are willing to use them.  

“For example, we recently launched an app in our bakeries that tells associates exactly which bread to bake in which baking round. Our experienced employees were used to deciding this for themselves, so we knew we had to communicate well to explain to them that the tool would really help them work more effectively and reduce waste. To explain the tool’s benefits, we held information nights at every store and used other communication tools, such as movies – the implementation program was almost bigger than the project to develop the app. We also had to make sure that we had a strong feedback loop with the stores, listened to what people told us, and improved the tool to meet their needs. It took some weeks but, in the end, it was successful and people are happy with it.”
 

7. Noortje, you mentioned waste. Combating food waste is a big priority for Ahold Delhaize. Do you have any examples of how AI is helping? 

Noortje: “Yes, many! The first step in preventing food waste is always to stock the stores as closely as possible with what people want to buy. AI is helping us do that. We’re currently rolling out new algorithms that use AI assortment planning, to determine the correct product mix per store and assortment group.  

“Secondly, we use AI to forecast customer demand and algorithms to determine how much of a product we should deliver to a store and when – like the production algorithm we use in the bakery app. 

“Because we can never forecast perfectly, we use AI to dynamically mark down the cost of items on the shelves that are about to expire. These dynamic prices are automatically pushed to our Albert Heijn app and the electronic shelf label – the system reevaluates and updates every 15 minutes.”  

8. What role will AI play in the fight against food waste 10 years from now? 

Noortje: “My dream is that forecasting will someday be so precise that we will sell exactly what we bring to the store. When you think about it, food waste results from not having the insights needed to make the smartest decisions – and AI will continue to help us make better decisions.  

“One huge benefit to AI is that it enables us to build simulation environments to test our replenishment algorithms in different scenarios in a way that is much faster and less costly than doing it physically in the stores. Customers don’t want to see empty shelves, so there’s always a trade-off between availability and waste, but AI makes these decisions so much easier than in the past by giving us the right data to support our decision-making. 

“AI will also expand food waste reduction capabilities across the retail industry. While Albert Heijn is already a frontrunner in how we use technology to prevent food waste, generative AI will put these tools in reach for many other retailers.”  

9. A lot of AI in retail focuses on the customer experience. But do you think the operational side – supply chain, product flow, efficiency – deserves more attention? 

Noortje: “Yes, that's one of my favorite topics! Our supply chain is our most AI-intensive domain because it runs on optimization algorithms. I see it like a big Tetris puzzle – we know which articles to bring to a store, and we use optimization algorithms to fit them perfectly onto a load carrier in the distribution center, just like a Tetris game. 

“We use also optimization algorithms to design perfect walking paths for associates as they move product around our distribution centers and to make sure we pack trucks with as little air as possible. ‘Invisible’ innovations like these enable us to save millions of euros, not to mention environmental impact, by operating more efficiently.” 

10. I know when it comes to AI, it’s hard to look even two weeks ahead, but I'm going to ask you to look further than that. In the next two to three years, what's the shift in AI that you will matter most and that we're not talking about enough yet? 

Sjoerd: “I think the agentic part is going to change a lot – both on consumer side and the organizational side. We're the last generation of leaders who will have only led humans. Upcoming generations will lead agents as well as humans. Agents will have an employee number, and will execute tasks around the clock together. I believe this will free up time for humans spend time on things that really add value. Humans will become more the orchestrators of these agents rather than executing all the work themselves. So, it's going to be very interesting.” 

Noortje: “We are already trying to determine what processes will look like with agents. Today, store managers still spend a lot of time on computers and email, managing information and results and then processing and translating them into tasks for their associates. This takes them away from the many things happening in the store, and from customers and their feedback. We believe that if we can help store managers by taking all this information and breaking it up to tasks that can be distributed – maybe even automatically – the store manager will have more time to coach associates and interact with customers.  

“We believe that AI will make our people more human – meaning that instead of doing repetitive but necessary tasks, they can actually spend time on things that humans are really good at.” 

This article is part of a 10-part series celebrating 10 years of Ahold Delhaize. For a decade, Ahold Delhaize brands have been trusted partners in millions of customers’ daily moments, operating at the heart of local communities. We’ve built a strong foundation in those 10 years – but this is only the beginning. In this series, we look back at where we came from and forward to the future, through the eyes of the people who are making it all happen.  

Sustainability 
 

Advancing circular energy solutions with Moment Energy

Included in this new round of investments is Moment Energy, a pioneer in repurposed battery energy storage systems (BESS) and the first company in North America to manufacture certified, commercial-scale systems using second-life electric vehicle batteries. Built on the principle that every battery deserves a second life, Moment Energy’s platform extends EV battery lifespan, preventing premature recycling and landfill waste while enabling more sustainable energy use. Its cost-effective BESS solutions deliver reliable and flexible energy storage at scale across grocery retail infrastructure as well as in settings including data centers, hospitals, factories and microgrids. 

As Ingrid Maes, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of W23 Global, noted, “Moment Energy is meaningfully advancing what’s possible in sustainable retail infrastructure and supply chain circularity. As grocery operations face rising energy costs and increasing demand pressures, Moment Energy's second-life storage systems give retailers a faster, cleaner path to reliable backup power, while significantly reducing peak-demand utility costs.” 

Optimizing energy portfolios with Verse 

W23 Global is also investing in Verse, an energy intelligence platform that helps large-scale energy consumers manage increasingly complex energy portfolios. Its core product, Aria™, centralizes utility bills, contracts, and power purchase agreements across thousands of sites, providing a unified view of energy data. This enables retailers to compare forecasts to actual performance across stores, distribution centers and other physical assets, make smarter procurement decisions, and optimize costs and risk. With the addition of Dispatch Intelligence, Verse also orchestrates on-site energy resources in real time, helping AI infrastructure come online faster in a constrained grid environment. 

AI-enabled operations
 

Enabling secure agent-driven commerce with Skyfire

Expanding its focus to the emerging landscape of AI-driven commerce, W23 Global is investing in Skyfire, which is building a cross-ecosystem trust and permission layer for the agentic economy. The platform provides a secure identity and financial stack that enables retailers to distinguish trusted AI shopping agents from malicious automation. Through verified “Know Your Agent” (KYA) credentials and integrated payment capabilities, Skyfire allows businesses to safely open their digital channels to autonomous shoppers. 

"Skyfire is providing the critical infrastructure required to turn the rise of autonomous AI into a new frontier of growth for retailers," said Ingrid Maes, CEO and CIO of W23 Global. "By upgrading traditional commerce stacks with a dedicated agent identity and payment layer, Skyfire provides the key to unlock high-intent agent demand while shielding systems from the surge of bot-driven cyber risk. Skyfire provides the infrastructure retailers need to capture and process automated transactions securely and instantly.” 

Scaling compliant marketing with Haast

Among its latest investments, W23 Global is investing in Haast, an AI-native platform designed to automate marketing compliance and brand protection for consumer industries. Founded in 2023, Haast supports retailers in managing compliance across the full content lifecycle, from pre-publication review to continuous monitoring of live channels. Operating across text, image, video, and audio, the platform helps ensure consistent, compliant messaging while accelerating approval processes. It helps marketing, legal, and compliance teams save time, reduce risk, and speed up content approvals in a complex regulatory environment. 

Elevating customer experience with Cresta 

W23 Global also announces its investment in Cresta, a unified platform in human-centric generative AI for contact centers. Cresta’s platform combines autonomous AI agents with real-time coaching and conversation intelligence for human teams. Originating from the Stanford AI Lab and led by the co-founder of Google’s AI Contact Center, the company helps teams work more effectively by turning conversational data into live agent assistance. Their scalable technology has already delivered measurable operational results for global enterprises, with over 80 businesses as customers. 

As Ingrid Maes, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of W23 Global, noted, "Customer service has become a critical point of differentiation for retailers. The opportunity is no longer simply to automate interactions, but to deliver faster, more personalized and more consistent customer experiences while fundamentally improving the economics of service. We believe Cresta is one of the companies best positioned to help retailers achieve both." 

About W23 Global

W23 Global is a global grocery retail venture capital fund backed by five leading grocery retailers: Tesco (UK, ROI, Europe), Ahold Delhaize (U.S., Europe, Indonesia), Woolworths Group (Australia, New Zealand), Shoprite Group (Africa), and Empire Company Limited (Canada). W23 Global invests in innovative start-ups and scale-ups developing technology to transform grocery retail. Its work focuses on supporting companies that build solutions with practical application across markets, helping advance the way retailers operate and serve customers while addressing sustainability challenges. As technology continues to shape the future of grocery retail, W23 Global remains focused on solutions that make a tangible difference for both customers and retailers.  

For more information about W23 Global, visit www.w23.vc. 

KickstartAI was founded in 2019 based on the shared belief that the Netherlands needs not only strong technology and talent, but above all, organizations that know how to apply AI to issues that truly matter. That is why it focuses on applications that have a direct effect on societal challenges.  

Knowledge sharing through KickstartAI is helping Ahold Delhaize brands solve some important challenges. For example, bol is using AI models to optimize the prediction of parcel volumes, resulting in more efficient transport. Albert Heijn is driving waste reduction through dynamic mark downs and Delhaize is lowering food waste through improved forecasting. 

The foundation is also helping us attract, develop and retain top talent, contribute to academic and societal debate around AI decision making, and drive community and social impact. KickstartAI works with organizations such as Erasmus MC and the National Police on projects that show what is needed not only to develop and test AI, but also to truly implement and scale it in practice. 

That practical experience is urgently needed. The Netherlands faces major societal and economic challenges, from declining productivity growth and rising healthcare costs to climate pressure and congested infrastructure. AI can help deliver concrete progress on precisely these types of issues, provided that organizations make the transition from experimentation to application at scale. 

“KickstartAI not only provides a valuable place to exchange knowledge and jointly develop and implement AI applications,” said our CEO Frans Muller, “it also gives us the opportunity to apply our knowledge and experience beyond our own business, in areas where the impact is significant.” 

“The biggest challenge around AI right now is not the technology itself, but the step from ambition to application,” said Erick Webbe, CEO of KickstartAI. “Real progress happens when you work together on concrete solutions, learn from them and share those lessons so others can move faster. In this new phase, we want to expand our group of partners so that successful applications and practical lessons can spread more quickly to other sectors and further increase the positive impact of AI in the Netherlands.” 

About KickstartAI 
KickstartAI is an independent foundation, founded by Ahold Delhaize, ING, KLM and NS, that helps organizations move from individual AI pilots to demonstrable societal impact. KickstartAI shows where AI works in practice, what is needed to scale successful solutions, and how those lessons can be applied more broadly in the Netherlands. For more information, visit kickstart.ai. 

Ahold Delhaize’s local brands source products from more than 180 countries and work with over 15,000 direct suppliers. Together, they serve 77 million customers every week. For us, sourcing food responsibly is about more than where products come from. It is about working together across brands to make everyday food, safe, affordable and healthier – for as many people as possible – and to support the transition to a more sustainable food system. 

Ahold Delhaize’s European brands continue to raise the bar and expand their shared sourcing efforts, with the aim to support affordability, increase access to healthier food and build more resilient supply chains. 

Harmonizing across own-brand product ranges 
One of the most important ways our European brands are working together is by harmonizing products across their own-brand product ranges. For example, they might agree to harmonize their recipes, ingredients, and packaging for an own-brand pasta sauce product. This enables them to reduce complexity in packaging and logistics, consolidate volumes and pass savings on to customers. 

So far this year, the brands have identified hundreds of key value items across our six European markets – the Netherlands, Belgium, Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia and Greece – where we see further opportunities to harmonize products and take better advantage of our scale. These products – from bananas to yogurt to toilet paper – play a critical role in our value proposition: they are purchased frequently, strongly influence price perception, and show limited need for local differentiation. 

These efforts build on the work our European brands did in 2025 to ramp up their shared approach to sourcing in order to keep everyday essentials affordable for customers. Sourcing together and combining volumes enables the brands to buy ingredients and products more efficiently, plan further ahead, build stronger long-term relationships with suppliers, reduce unnecessary complexity in the supply chain, and lower costs. And the money they save can be invested back into affordable prices for customers.  

In 2025, our European brands expanded their joint sourcing portfolio with 167 new products, including 100 items in their Price Favorite range. By the end of the year each of the European brands offered over 900 Price Favorite products, providing customers with greater choice and value across their assortments. Overall, the brands added 1,450 new own-brand products in Europe last year. 

Innovating through own brands 
For our European brands, own brands are also a way to play a leading role in innovation by leveraging their deep local insights and strong development capabilities. Own brands enable them to launch differentiated products that help customers make better choices without compromising on quality or taste.  

Some recent successes are Albert Heijn’s renewed own-brand BBQ assortment with over 80 new products – launched right in time for the sunny weather. Alfa Beta’s award-winning own-brand range “AB close to the Greek land” highlights their commitment to high-quality products inspired by the richness of Greek gastronomy and local production. And Maxi Serbia has significantly stepped up their own-brand offering to support customers who have faced ongoing pressure on their household budget in the country. Innovations like these in Europe continue to inspire product development across Ahold Delhaize as we pursue our ambition of 45% own-brand sales. 

Making healthy and sustainable choices easier and more accessible 
Joint sourcing also plays a key role in helping customers eat healthier and more sustainably. In 2025, more than half (52.1%) of Ahold Delhaize’s own‑brand food sales came from products classified as healthy. This reflects years of work across brands to improve everyday products – reducing salt, sugar and saturated fat, and increasing healthier options – while keeping prices accessible. Because many of our brands work with the same suppliers, cooperating means improvements can be made at scale. When a supplier reformulates an ingredient or improves a recipe, that change can benefit multiple brands and millions of customers. You can see this approach in action at the local brands. 

At Albert Heijn in the Netherlands, working together with shared suppliers has helped improve the recipes of everyday own‑brand products – cutting back on sugar, salt and saturated fat while keeping prices affordable for customers.  For example, Albert Heijn reduced the sugar in all its own-brand products by the equivalent of 134 million sugar cubes in 2025. You can read more about Albert Heijn’s progress in making its own-brand products healthier in its 2025 Impact Report.  

At Delhaize in Belgium, the same joint sourcing approach supports a wide range of healthier own‑brand products, including reduced‑salt and reduced‑sugar options that are part of many families’ regular weekly shopping basket – not premium products, but everyday choices. In 2025, Delhaize also launched a selection of hybrid protein products that blend traditional meat flavors with the advantages of plant-based ingredients – based on inspiration from Albert Heijn. 

Working with suppliers at scale also helps our brands source more responsibly and reduce waste. For example, as they harmonize own-brand products, our European brands are also working to reduce packaging materials – particularly the use of virgin plastic – for these ranges. In 2025, we surpassed our target to reduce the use of virgin plastic packaging as a result of several brand initiatives to improve plastic own-brand packaging. 

Building for the long term 
Joint sourcing is not about quick wins. It is a continuous effort to build a food system that works for customers, suppliers, and communities. By working together to create more affordable, healthy and responsible product ranges, our European brands continue to unlock meaningful benefits for both customers and the planet. Because what happens at the source ultimately shapes what ends up on the shelf. 

To learn more about joint sourcing at Ahold Delhaize, watch Robert’s story below.   

By combining the expertise of local brand teams, our central customer & digital platform team, and external partners, we have created a model that drives faster innovation, stronger collaboration, and cost efficiencies across Europe.  

A shared foundation 
The ambitious digital transformation delivered six apps across five brands in under twelve months – launching first with Albert in the Czech Republic, followed by Maxi in Serbia, Delhaize in Belgium and Luxembourg, Mega Image in Romania, and culminating with Alfa Beta in Greece.  

The new customer app puts everything customers need in one place; from online shopping and personalized offers to loyalty rewards and in-store features. As their needs evolve, so does the app, creating a more seamless and connected experience across every touchpoint. 

For our local brands, the app is built on a shared foundation that lets each brand move faster and innovate more efficiently, while staying true to their own identity and the preferences of their local customers. 

“Converging our apps into one unified, modular platform became a real springboard for us. The foundation we built helps us deliver faster, with greater impact and better cost efficiency. The principles and rituals we introduced are still very much alive today, creating a shared sense of purpose that helps every brand succeed in its market”, said Nataliia Bertrand, Head of Product Customer & Loyalty. 

Growing the business 
Since the app launched at Alfa Beta a year ago, the unified app has demonstrated its value through uplift in customer engagement and business growth. Across all brands, the initiative has achieved:  

•  12% increase in e-commerce sales through the app 

•  31% growth in weekly active app users 

•  33% increase in personal offer activations 

These metrics underscore the platform's success in creating a more engaging, personalized shopping experience that customers across Europe have embraced enthusiastically. 

Simplifying meal planning 
Customer-facing enhancements have focused on making the shopping journey in the new app faster, more intuitive and more rewarding. The introduction of the “frequently bought” feature has transformed how customers shop, enabling a more seamless and personalized omnichannel experience. The new preference center allows customers to save food preferences and receive tailored recipe recommendations, simplifying meal planning. In Belgium, customers can now fast charge their e-vehicles and earn SuperPlus loyalty points through a digital partnership with Elektra, extending value beyond traditional grocery shopping. 

Payment convenience has also advanced significantly with the integration of Google Pay and Apple Pay across the platform. In Serbia, Maxi became one of the first supermarkets to use the payment method Payten, reinforcing our role as an innovation partner in the fintech space. At the same time, the subscription program Delivery+ was refreshed with simplified plans, improved pricing, and double points on every order to strengthen conversion and loyalty. New content provides richer inspiration beyond transactions, while expanded cross-sell capabilities help customers discover complementary products and increase basket value. 

Responding to market dynamics  
The impact of these enhancements is reflected not only in performance metrics, but in the platform’s ability to scale and adapt. As Maxime Zwart, Director Digital Experience, Intelligence & Operations, explains: “The strong growth in sales, users and engagement shows that customers appreciate the experience we’ve built. Even more important is the foundation now in place for continuous innovation. This platform gives us the agility to respond to changing customer needs and market dynamics faster than ever.” 

Behind the scenes, substantial infrastructure upgrades have strengthened performance and scalability. Mega Image implemented a new backend that enables faster, more efficient store fulfillment, directly improving the end-to-end customer experience. B2B capabilities were also enhanced, including improved registration flows and overall user experience to better serve business customers. 

The platform includes advanced A/B testing functionality, allowing teams to continuously improve the app based on real customer behavior. Strengthened collaboration with payment providers has improved security and reliability across markets. At the same time, expanded in-app retail media capabilities are unlocking new revenue streams, demonstrating how a robust digital backbone can simultaneously drive operational excellence, customer satisfaction and business growth. 

Maxime shares more about her experience in working on this project in the video below.

Strengthening product development with Keychain
One of the two announced investments is Keychain, an AI-powered manufacturing platform used by eight of the ten largest retailers in the U.S. – along with 7-Eleven and Whole Foods. Through Keychain’s proprietary platform, Keychain Search, the AI-based system helps manufacturers manage their production cycle with greater speed, visibility, and intelligence. It also gives retailers clear insight into how existing products are made, helping them reproduce or improve formulas with trusted manufacturers, as well as enabling them to create entirely new products from the ground up. The platform uses AI to recommend the best production options to meet retailers' goals for quality, cost and sustainability. 

Ingrid Maes, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of W23 Global noted, “Keychain’s AI-powered platform streamlines private label sourcing and enables retailers to bring quality private label products to customers faster and more efficiently.” With more than 30,000 manufacturers and 20,000 brands and retailers in its network, Keychain is helping modernize product development across the sector.
 

Expanding retail media capabilities with Topsort
W23 Global has also invested in Topsort, an AI and auction-based retail media infrastructure company that aims to democratize Silicon Valley’s monetization secrets to retailers and marketplaces by using innovative bidless auction technology. Topsort’s auction-based formats include sponsored listings, banners, off-site media without heavy engineering lift. By combining scalable infrastructure, AI automation, and omnichannel capabilities, Topsort is building a future where retail media is not just an add-on, but a core driver of retail growth while remaining cleaner, more connected, and global.

As Ingrid Maes highlighted, “Topsort’s innovative bidless auction technology empowers retailers to expand their media networks, while offering more sellers the chance to effectively reach relevant customers.” By simplifying the retail media ecosystem, Topsort makes it easier for retailers to connect advertisers with customers in more relevant, transparent and efficient ways.
 

A continued commitment to innovation
Together, these investments reflect W23 Global’s ongoing work to support start-ups delivering technology with real-world, cross-market impact. Through its investment in W23 Global, Ahold Delhaize is actively shaping the future of grocery retail, advancing practical innovations that address industry challenges and help retailers operate more efficiently, serve customers better, and respond to evolving market needs.


About W23 Global
W23 Global is a global grocery retail venture capital fund backed by five leading grocery retailers: Tesco (UK, ROI, Europe), Ahold Delhaize (US, Europe, Indonesia), Woolworths Group (Australia, New Zealand), Shoprite Group (Africa), and Empire Company Limited (Canada).

W23 Global invests in innovative start-ups and scale-ups developing technology to transform grocery retail. Its work focuses on supporting companies that build solutions with practical application across markets, helping advance the way retailers operate and serve customers while addressing sustainability challenges. As technology continues to shape the future of grocery retail, W23 Global remains focused on solutions that make a tangible difference for both customers and retailers.


For more information about W23 Global, visit www.w23.vc.

This update builds on last year’s establishment of W23 Global, a pioneering retail venture capital (VC) between five of the world’s leading grocery retailers: Ahold Delhaize, Tesco, Woolworths Group, Empire Company Limited/Sobeys Inc., and Shoprite Group. With a shared ambition to address several of the industry’s biggest challenges, from digital transformation to sustainability, W23 Global represents a unique collaborative innovation platform backed by US$125 million over five years. 

Transformative technologies for a smarter and safer retail future
Harmonya, based in New York, leverages AI to transform outdated and fragmented product data into rich, contextual, and actionable insights. By enriching product information, its platform allows retailers to offer more personalized and relevant shopping experiences, improving product discovery and enhance shopper satisfaction both in-store and online. 

Protex AI, based in Ireland, uses advanced computer vision to proactively identify and reduce safety risks across retail operations. Its privacy-conscious solution integrates with existing closed-circuit television (CCTV) infrastructure, helping retailers shift from reactive to preventive safety approaches. This creates safer, more efficient environments for employees and customers alike. 

Scaling innovation through collaboration 
“Innovation is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s essential to remain relevant in a fast-evolving sector,” said Ingrid Maes, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of W23 Global. “With W23 Global, we’ve created a global innovation platform that unlocks access to world-class start-ups, fosters shared learning between retailers, and delivers better and faster outcomes for all partners. Harmonya and Protex AI exemplify the kind of scalable solutions we want to champion. They provide solutions that solve real retail problems and contribute to more sustainable, customer-centric businesses. These investments are a testament to our commitment to driving meaningful change and shaping the future of retail through innovation.” 

Looking ahead, W23 Global will continue to explore emerging innovations in areas such as personalization, AI, computer vision, digital commerce, retail media, supply chain resilience, circular commerce, and emissions reduction. This collaborative platform allows Ahold Delhaize and its partners to build a collective vision, and help start-ups scale innovations that benefit customers, employees, and communities across the industry. 

For more information about W23 Global, visit www.w23.vc. 

Part of Ahold Delhaize’s Growing Together strategy involves leveraging technology and data to drive customer innovation and operational excellence. With the growing popularity of AI, machine learning operations (MLOps) is developing rapidly as a field, and is critical for a food retail company like Ahold Delhaize and its brands – as well as many other tech-driven companies. 

The conference provided an ideal platform for professionals to share insights and solutions while exploring the latest advancements in this rapidly growing sector. Focused on machine learning, the event highlighted the importance of optimizing AI model deployment and accelerating innovation across various industries by reducing time to production. 
 

Key highlights from the speakers 

This year’s event brought together inspiring speakers from some of the Netherlands' leading companies, including ABN AMRO, Adyen, Ahold Delhaize, Albert Heijn, bol, Booking.com and Eneco . These experts presented cutting-edge MLOps strategies and shared the challenges they are tackling in their respective fields. The conference covered three key topics that are crucial for the future of MLOps:  

• How infrastructure for MLOps should be organized 
• How to organize teams to speed up time to market for machine learning products  
• How to go about challenging machine learning projects  

 Building a GenAI platform at ABN AMRO 
Rafael Pierre, GenAI Engineering Lead & Architect at ABN AMRO, introduced the company’s secure platform for deploying open-source large language models (LLMs). He explained the strategies to mitigate risks, including vulnerability scanning and centralized model management. 

MLOps at Adyen 
Asia Krajewska, MLOps Tech Lead at Adyen, shared the company’s approach to building reliable machine learning systems for payment processing, ensuring high availability and low latency. She explained how Adyen uses a mix of open-source and custom tooling to meet the demands of real-time payment transactions. 

Scalable and secure data platform at Ahold Delhaize 
Aoife O'Callaghan, Manager Data platform at Ahold Delhaize, showcased how the company is building a scalable and secure data platform using Azure and Infrastructure as Code (IaC). Key highlights included the integration of FinOps and fostering a culture of collaboration and self-service with robust security and scalability guardrails. 

Workflow orchestration at Albert Heijn 
Niels van den Berg, Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Albert Heijn, shared the team’s journey in automating workflow orchestration with Databricks. The session highlighted challenges faced and how Databricks Asset Bundles improved scalability in their operations. 

Real-time product recommendations at bol 
Binyam Gebre, Senior Data Scientist at bol, shared insights into the challenges of generating real-time recommendations for over 13 million customers and 40 million products. He detailed how bol uses Vertex AI and BigTable to maintain up-to-date user embeddings and ensure fast, accurate recommendations. 

Ultra-low-latency feature serving at Booking.com 
Başak Eskili, Machine Learning Engineer at Booking.com, presented the success story of their custom feature store, built to handle 200K RPS with latency under 25 ms. She explained the technical implementation and cost-efficient strategies that support real-time applications at scale. 

Building MLOps teams in non-tech companies 
Raphaël Hoogvliets, MLOps Tech Lead at Eneco, discussed strategies for establishing MLOps teams in non-tech environments. He emphasized leadership buy-in, long-term product thinking, and practical staffing strategies to ensure the long-term success of MLOps initiatives. 

Deploying recommendation models with mono-repo workflows 
Victor Pion, Data Scientist, and Jonathan Torres, Machine Learning Engineer, at Ahold Delhaize, discussed the company’s shift to a mono-repo workflow for deploying recommendation models. They showcased how this approach improved flexibility, simplified deployments, and accelerated iteration cycles for their teams. 

LLM security and adversarial prompts 
Folkert Stijnman, ML engineer at NS, provided an eye-opening talk on the growing threats of prompt injections and adversarial attacks on large language models. He emphasized the importance of proactive testing and developing defense mechanisms to safeguard AI systems. 

Future collaboration 

This year’s MLOps conference not only showcased the innovative work being done by Ahold Delhaize and its industry peers but also reinforced the growing importance of collaboration across sectors to solve the challenges of deploying and scaling machine learning models. The success of this event marks another milestone in Ahold Delhaize’s journey to harness the power of technology to enhance operations, improve customer experiences, and create new opportunities for growth. With the continued evolution of MLOps, the company is excited about the future of AI and its transformative impact on the retail industry and beyond. 

February 27, 2025 – Innovation plays a crucial role in shaping the future of the ever-evolving grocery retail sector. As such, one of the key priorities of Ahold Delhaize’s Growing Together strategy is driving customer innovation. Collaborating and partnering with different organizations enable innovation – at speed and at scale. Last year, Ahold Delhaize announced that it had joined forces with four other leading grocery retailers to establish a collaborative venture capital (VC) fund, W23 Global. This pioneering VC fund aims to drive transformative growth through targeted investments. 

Interview with Ingrid Maes, CEO of W23 Global
Ingrid Maes is the entrepreneur at the helm of W23 Global as CEO and Chief Investment Officer. Ingrid brings 25+ years of experience in retail, data, customer loyalty, digital and investment, while also heading up Australian grocery leader Woolworths’ innovation fund, W23 Australia.  
 

What’s the purpose of W23 Global? 
W23 Global is a worldwide innovation partnership between five leading grocery retailers – Ahold Delhaize, Tesco, Empire Group (owner of Sobeys supermarkets), Shoprite and Woolworths Group – jointly investing in start-ups to accelerate retail transformation and deliver sustainability ambitions.  
 

What’s the strategic rationale behind the alliance? 
Together, W23 Global partners serve nearly 160 million customers, have around 19,000 stores and employ over 1.2 million people across the U.S., Canada, U.K., Europe, Africa and Australia. The collaboration enables us to achieve better and faster outcomes at lower costs, creating an unmatched competitive edge: 

• Partners get superior access to the best innovations worldwide
• Partners can learn from each other and accelerate innovation adoption
• W23 Global creates a platform to jointly foster new innovations
   

How is W23 Global complementing its partners’ continuing direct innovation and investment strategies? 
W23 Global is focused on investing in globally scalable start-ups where collaboration delivers better outcomes for partners. It deliberately steers clear of investing in start-ups with a local approach, such as a regional last-mile delivery business. Moreover, W23 Global does not acquire controlling stakes, which is typically the domain of M&A teams. 
 

How do you reflect on the first couple of months of W23 Global, following the fund's launch? 
The focus so far has been on connecting with the teams and understanding more about each partner’s strategies and priorities. I’ve really enjoyed meeting the key innovators across our partners and Ahold Delhaize, diving deeper into their unique strategies and priorities, and learning how W23 Global can support their innovation journeys.  
 

Looking forward, could you name some key opportunities for 2025? 
The future holds immense potential, and I look forward to continuing to collaborate closely with Ahold Delhaize’s innovators and support them in delivering their strategies. We’ll be scanning the global horizon for exciting innovations across various areas, such as personalization, adaptive retail, social commerce, retail media, robotics and automation, agentic AI, emissions reduction, waste management, circular commerce, regenerative agriculture, nature and alternative proteins. And I’m excited to share these innovations with Ahold Delhaize and invest in the best of them.
   

About W23 Global  
Domiciled in the U.K., W23 Global seeks to deploy $125 million over five years, with strong potential for future growth. Each retailer has an equal stake, and contributes capital equally. The fund invests in innovative start-ups and scale-ups that deploy technology to enhance customer experiences, transform the grocery value chain, and address the sector’s sustainability challenges.  

For more information, please visit W23 Global’s website.    

To kick off this year’s Groceryshop event, our CEO Frans Muller had the honor of hosting the keynote opening on stage together with Melissa Repko, retail reporter for CNBC New York. Frans took more than 3,500 people in the audience on a journey of what we at Ahold Delhaize are working on day in, day out. As not everyone knows Ahold Delhaize – but they certainly know Food Lion, Stop & Shop, The GIANT Company, Giant Food or Hannaford from their own shopping experiences – Frans and Melissa explained how next to being the largest retail group on the U.S. east coast, Ahold Delhaize’s brands across the pond are #1 or #2 in all of our markets in Europe. Frans also zoomed in on what’s important for us: staying closely connected to the 63 million customers our brands serve every week and how our new company strategy, Growing Together, is guiding our vision to be your most trusted local food retailer.  

Business cases for AI and GenAI 

Next stop in the conversation was innovation and how Ahold Delhaize invests heavily in AI and Generative AI solutions. Frans shared the example of dynamic markdowns in The Netherlands, where Albert Heijn uses AI to mark down products nearing expiration every 15 minutes. This provides great value to customers, and it reduced more than 250 tons of food waste in its first year. Frans also shared how our U.S. brands introduced Gen AI-based semantic search, allowing customers to search for products by intent, rather than keyword search.  For example, “birthday ideas for 8 year-olds”, would in the past show limited results. Now, it shows birthday cakes, decorations and more, enhancing customer experience and boosting revenue. These are just some of the many examples of innovation going on.  

Setting strong targets on private brand

When a company like Ahold Delhaize sets a strong target, you get questions. Melissa asked about the companywide target of growing towards 45% of private brand food sales by 2028. Frans explained how private brands (or labels) offer great value as they allow us to be innovative and agile (in terms of price, packaging, reformulations and time to market). At the same time, we believe in a strong balance of private brand and national brands for our customers. And every market has its own diamond mix for private brand sales, depending on the customer preferences. In the Benelux for example, private brand makes around 50% of sales, while in the U.S. it makes 30% of sales.

Growing retail media

Our target for complementary revenue streams also intrigued Melissa, especially the retail media side of this. How does Ahold Delhaize and our local brands make sure customers receive personalized promotions and suggestions, without losing great customer experience? At Ahold Delhaize, we believe retail media actually enhances the customer experience. The promotions you’re seeing as a customer, need to relate to you – offering promotions on the products you usually buy, or suggesting a similar product that might be nice to explore. Strong data and strong data protection is at the heart of all of this.  

While several other topics were discussed in the keynote opening, there are three key takeaways from Frans that we’d like to share: 

• Omnichannel is and will remain the way forward. It’s all about the seamless customer experience via all our channels, connected via our loyalty system. 
• The local brand strategy is sometimes challenged because it can reduce efficiency. The advantage of having true local connections to those local communities, to have that brand that you know and trust, overcompensates for this tremendously. Ahold Delhaize is harmonizing the ‘back office’, but will always leave room for the local brands to shine.  
• Great people. Our company exists because of the dedication our amazing colleagues show every day. 

That concludes the highlights from a busy and buzzing Groceryshop conference. 

If you have any questions around these topics, please contact the Ahold Delhaize external communications team via Media.Relations@aholddelhaize.com. 

Enhanced shopping experience for Delhaize customers

Delhaize customers will notice several improvements with this new app launch:  

1. Intuitive interface with clearer communication: Delhaize’s major value propositions, such as online shopping, point rewards, personal offers, and the NutriBoost program, are now more clearly communicated and easier to navigate. The app offers optimized product recommendation flows, product lists, and checkout processes. All designed based on extensive user research.  
2. Full AA accessibility: Ensuring the app is accessible to all customers and ready for compliance regulations of July 2025.
3. (Healthy) alternatives are now more visible: Making it easier for customers to make healthier choices and improving product recommendations within the shopping flow.  

Lefteris Geranios, User Experience & Digital Development Manager at Delhaize comments, “By rebuilding the app from the ground up, we are able to provide our customers with a seamless and consistent experience throughout the entire app. This represents a significant improvement for them.” Customers who have tried the new app have already expressed that it is faster and easier to use, it gives a better overview of what is on offer. 

What’s unique about the Delhaize app? 

The apps’ enriched loyalty experience is designed to reward customers in meaningful ways, from free products and partner discounts to charity donations, making their shopping journey more rewarding. Customers can track their points, savings, and even monitor the healthiness of their purchases through the app.  

The new app offers recipe features that support customers with their grocery shopping, such as the possibility to scan a product and receive recipe suggestions based on the items available in their fridge, inspiring them to try new recipes. The app also introduces new product recommendations. For example, when a product is part of a bundle, such as meal packages, the app now displays recommendations to encourage customers to complete their dish.  

The enhanced in-store experience provides another unique set of benefits: shopping lists, automatic connection to in-store WiFi, Payconiq payment, and receiving cash from deposits or returns directly into a digital wallet.  

Monetization marks the next key milestone for the new app, it now features display and sponsored products through Ahold Delhaize’s retail media platform, Gambit. 

Streamlined for iOS and Android

The new Delhaize app is built on a modular framework that supports cross-platform functionality for both iOS and Android devices. This foundation allows for faster development and easier scaling of new features, reducing both time and costs. 

Looking ahead

With Delhaize Belgium’s app now live, we are excited to announce that Luxembourg, Romania, and Greece are next in line. We are on track to complete the rollout by the end of the year, bringing our unified app experience to more customers.

We thank our dedicated team and loyal customers for their continuous support and enthusiasm. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to innovate and enhance the shopping experience! 

Today’s launch features the Maxi app, the second in a series of unified, modular apps planned for release throughout 2024. The app will have a gradual rollout and it will be available for all Maxi customers within the next weeks. 
 

Enhanced shopping experience 

Maxi customers will benefit from a more streamlined shopping process with improved usability and a consistent look and feel. The app offers optimized promotions, product lists, and checkout processes, all designed based on extensive user research within the shopping journey. This modular approach allows brands to share functionalities like referral programs and value propositions, including loyalty programs and fast delivery options, more easily. 
 

Expanding tech capabilities and knowledge 

This initiative marks a significant step in Ahold Delhaize’s product and tech ambitions, enhancing collaboration and operational efficiency across its European brands. Developed on ReactNative, the modular app framework supports cross-platform functionality for both iOS and Android devices. This foundation enables the rapid scaling of new features and innovations, reducing design and development time, as well as costs. The shared codebase and design system are expected to yield substantial annual savings, improving the company’s financial health. 
 

Anette Schouls,  VP Consumer Products Ahold Delhaize: “This new app for Maxi has been designed to scale wherever possible and include local requirements when needed. The passionate collaboration with regional and local teams has been a key ingredient in delivering this new app for the second brand in line, only four months after its initial launch for Albert. This is fueling our excitement for a promising future.” 
 

Strong collaboration across brands and partners 

The project has involved close collaboration among the five participating brands, as well as the digital experience and IT teams, leveraging their combined expertise in business strategy, user experience design, software development, and product and project management. The initiative also includes partnerships with external experts in design, development, and analytics. 
 

Building a unified suite of digital services 

With the launch of the Maxi app, the primary function is to facilitate online shopping, particularly for larger weekly purchases. In addition to the new app for online shopping, Maxi will continue to operate the locally built Moj Maxi (“My Maxi”) app, dedicated to its loyalty program. As part of its omnichannel strategy, Maxi plans to integrate the two apps into a single customer touchpoint, enhancing user convenience and engagement. 
 

Pivotal advancement in digital transformation 

Ahold Delhaize's app convergence project represents a major milestone in its digital transformation journey. The greenfield approach and modular design offer brands a more secure, robust, and flexible app. By harmonizing the digital shopping experience across brands, Ahold Delhaize aims to enhance customer satisfaction, set new standards for retail innovation, and drive both customer engagement and business growth. 
 

We look forward to the upcoming launches of unified apps for our other brands! 

What is retail media and how does it benefit customers?

First, let’s clarify what we mean by retail media. IAB Europe, the European-level association for the digital marketing and advertising ecosystem, explains it as the advertising space, data assets and in-store opportunities a retailer or marketplace owns, which are then made available to brands for the execution of advertising campaigns.  
 

“Retail media is important to Ahold Delhaize’s European businesses for two main reasons: it enhances the customer experience and it provides additional revenue streams that can be invested back into important goals, like making shopping more convenient and enjoyable and working towards our healthy and sustainable agenda,” said Maurits. “By having a strong retail media program, we can provide more relevant advertising to customers when they visit our online channels, giving them a better and more personalized experience. For example, if a customer prefers vegetarian meals, our retail media partnerships allow our brands to show the customer more vegetarian offers through their online touchpoints.”  
 

Like most things that touch the customer at the Ahold Delhaize brands, retail media has mainly been a local pursuit. “Many of our great local brands in Europe have their own retail media organizations that are at different maturity levels and sizes and offer a variety of retail media products,” said Maurits. Earlier this year, Ahold Delhaize launched Ad Retail Media, a retail media organization that focuses specifically on advertising for products or services that are “non-endemic,” meaning they are not sold through our brands such as an offer from an energy supplier to switch to green energy. 
 

Ahold Delhaize at the forefront  

These efforts have put Ahold Delhaize at the forefront of retail media in the Benelux countries, with teams of associates involved from both the business (sales, data analysis and ad operations) and technology side. “What makes Ahold Delhaize stand apart is the incredible reach we have when it comes to advertising, through the many customer touch points offered through our brands, reaching almost everybody in the Benelux,” said Maurits. The brands offer a variety of retail media products, such as onsite advertising (homepage web- and app banners), in-store advertising (digital-out-of-home screens, hand scanners and promo teams) and offsite advertising (media channels of large publishers).  
 

Continuous growth ahead 

Bain & Company predicts that retail media will be a $140 billion global market by 2026 (up to €25 billion in Europe) with an expected annual growth of 25%. Maurits sees significant expansion opportunities ahead for retail media and explains how the industry will shift to make this growth possible and that the industry will need to scale up its reach, data and technology to accommodate this growth. “Supply and demand will professionalize and more standardization will take place. New revenue streams are already being unlocked by non-endemic advertising, and this will continue to grow. Offsite advertising, in which retail media provides an opportunity to advertise through large publishers and social media networks, will continue to take shape as well.”  
 

Looking ahead at retail media

Retail media has a bright future and Ahold Delhaize plans to take full advantage of all opportunities it resents. “We predict growth in retail media at Ahold Delhaize in Europe, both in expanding the advertisers we work with – including non-endemics – and also more propositions for advertising, especially earlier in the customer’s shopping journey, even before they come into the store or place their order online.” These could include video advertising, cookie-less offsite advertising and new media, such as delivery vans, next to media like sponsored banners on web & app. 
 

“We will continue to streamline the retail media process, with a self-service platform for our advertising customers and scale our technology within Europe,” said Maurits.  
 

For more information about our approach to retail media, see here. Homepage (adretailmedia.nl) 
 

For information about Ahold Delhaize USA’s Retail Media activities please go to: Ahold Delhaize Retail Media (adretailmedia.com) 

Pivotal role 

AD/01 will play a pivotal role in strengthening Ahold Delhaize’s capabilities as part of its digital, data and tech ecosystem. The teams will work on a wide range of topics, from web and app development to joining and initiating strategic projects in the areas of eCommerce, Infra, Data, Loyalty, Core Retail and beyond.
 

Wouter Kolk, CEO Ahold Delhaize Europe & Indonesia: “Our great local brands strive to create the leading local food shopping experience. As part of our tech ambitions, we focus on providing seamless digitally enabled experiences, whether in-store down the aisles, at the checkouts, or behind the scenes. With the evolving needs of our customers come new challenges, which is why we are creating AD/01. This tech studio will bring together sharp minds to develop innovations that serve people today and tomorrow and serve all our European brands. In doing so we are also investing in the Romanian market, where we already operate through our local brand Mega Image.” 
 

A community for growth and collaboration  

AD/01 aims to foster a vibrant inclusive engineering culture. The first talents are currently coming on board; the plan is to have around 250 top tech talents involved in this tech studio within the next few years. Recruiting activities for the tech studio will further solidify in the coming period and are primarily focused on the Romanian market which has one of the largest pools of skillful tech talent in Europe. 

Zaandam, the Netherlands, April 8, 2024 – Five of the world’s leading grocery retailers have come together to establish a pioneering collaborative venture capital (VC) fund, W23 Global. The fund will seek to invest in innovative start-ups and scale-ups that deploy technology to enhance customer experiences, transform the grocery value chain and address the sector’s sustainability challenges. Each retailer is an equal funder and partner in W23 Global, while their CEO’s will sit on the investment committee.

W23 Global CEO and Chief Investment Officer Ingrid Maes: "W23 is a potentially game-changing international VC fund with a powerful proposition for both our investors and portfolio companies. We aim to offer our investors incomparable access to transformative innovation in grocery and sustainability worldwide. W23 Global will work with its investors to identify common unaddressed challenges and support entrepreneurs to develop solutions, offering faster pathways to global scale for portfolio companies. With leading grocery CEOs on our investment committee, founders can rapidly develop ideas based on an accelerated understanding of retailers’ needs.” 

W23 Global complements its partners’ continuing direct innovation and investment strategies. The fund’s portfolio companies will be free to contract with any customer, whether a W23 Global partner or otherwise, on whatever terms they decide. 

Upon the announcement, Ahold Delhaize CEO, Frans Muller, said: “As pioneers in retail innovation for more than 150 years, Ahold Delhaize has consistently led the way in investing in the customer value proposition. We look forward to enhancing our efforts by partnering with other industry leaders and maximizing our collective impact. Together with best-in-class start-ups and scale-ups, we strongly believe we can further drive retail innovation, foster sustainability, and deliver greater value to communities worldwide.”

Where W23 Global will invest 

W23 Global will seek to invest in start-ups and scale-ups deploying technology to: 

• benefit consumers by driving faster, more personalized and connected experiences across stores and online;  
• create more efficient grocery value chains to the benefit of all stakeholders;  
• address grocery’s biggest sustainability challenges from farm to household, including emissions and waste reduction, packaging innovation, product traceability and transparency, healthy choices and biodiversity. 

In addition to investing in early-stage businesses, W23 Global will seek out entrepreneurs to solve problems that are not currently being adequately addressed. 

About W23 Global 

• W23 Global will seek to deploy US$125m over 5 years, with strong potential for future growth. It is domiciled in the UK. 
• W23 Global is led by CEO and Chief Investment Officer (CIO) Ingrid Maes. Ingrid currently leads Australian grocery leader Woolworths’ corporate VC fund, W23 Australia, which invests in retail innovation, sustainability and digital health, and is a well-known brand in the VC community. Ingrid brings an established track record, as well as 25+ years of experience in retail, data, customer loyalty, digital and investing. For more information, please visit W23 website. 

The anticipated converged app experience begins today with Albert’s launch, setting the stage for a series of app launches scheduled throughout 2024. 

Customers will notice a more streamlined shopping process, with improved usability and a consistent look and feel. Improved functionalities are based on extensive user research within the shopping journey. These include optimized promotion, product lists and checkout journeys which are designed to offer greater convenience and value. With this modular approach, brands can more easily share functionalities like refer a friend and value propositions – including loyalty programs or fast delivery – with each other. 

Scaling tech capabilities and expertise

For Ahold Delhaize, this initiative represents a significant step in the acceleration of our product and tech ambitions as well as the optimization of collaboration and operational efficiency for our European region. The modular nature of the app framework, developed on ReactNative, enables cross-platform functionality for both iOS and Android devices. These foundations allow for rapid scaling of new features and innovations, reducing design, development time and costs. Additionally, the shared codebase and design system are expected to provide annual savings, contributing to a healthier bottom line. 

Close collaboration across brands and partners

Our five participating brands, the digital experience and IT teams collaborated closely, leveraging their combined expertise in business strategy and tactics, user experience design, software development, and product- and project management. This project is also in collaboration with external partners for design, development and analytics.   

Building a unified suite of digital services

With Albert’s launch today, the primary function of the app is to facilitate online shopping, particularly for bigger weekly shopping purchases. Alongside the new app for online shopping, Albert continues to operate the locally built Muj Albert (“My Albert”) app, dedicated to its loyalty program. As part of its omnichannel roadmap, Albert intends to integrate the two apps into one single customer touchpoint.   

Overall, Ahold Delhaize's app convergence project marks a pivotal advancement in our digital transformation journey. The greenfield approach and modular design provide brands with an app that is more secure, robust and flexible. By harmonizing the digital shopping experience across our brands, we not only enhance customer satisfaction but also set a new standard for retail innovation, driving forward both customer engagement and business growth. We look forward to launching the apps for our other brands, with Maxi and Delhaize coming up!  

How bol uses AI to offer 36 million items to 14 million customers

Last week, bol featured Vincent Weijers, Chief Operations Officer bol: "We have 14 million customers, and a range of 36 million articles. So we have to manage it all in a large-scale logistics operation, for which we make smart use of automation, mechanization, but also AI.

From improving delivery promises to making packages more sustainable – watch the full episode below to discover how "the store for all of us" is currently deploying AI. 

How Albert Heijn uses AI to combat Food Waste  

In Albert Heijn’s mini documentary, Noortje van Genugten, Director Analytics & Data Science at Albert Heijn, explains how our Dutch supermarket uses AI to reduce food waste. "AI is very important for Albert Heijn," says Noortje. "We have over 1,000 shops and over 15,000 items per shop, so we have 15 million shelves which need to be properly managed every day. With our mission to make better food available for everyone, we want to leave the world a better place. One way we do this is by reducing food waste, and AI plays a significant role in helping us achieve this.”   

Watch Albert Heijn’s full episode below to find out how Albert Heijn is currently utilizing AI, what challenges they face and where they see opportunities for the near future.  

Our Dutch audience can watch all episodes on demand via Videoland, NLZiet and YouTube.  

About Kickstart AI  

Kickstart AI is an initiative by four Dutch corporates (Ahold Delhaize, ING, KLM and NS) to give back to the community. Through funding and pooling of data science resources, they created and continue to foster a thriving AI community. As such, Kickstart AI is uniquely positioned to drive AI adoption and tackle real-world challenges at scale.    

Kickstart AI regularly organizes knowledge-sharing events for data scientists engineers and AI experts, like TechDays. Their events are invite-only. Visit the website to register for the newsletter and upcoming events.   
 

Season 2, Episode 3: The potential of customer insights and AI in retail 

In this brand-new episode, Wouter and Aimee discuss how AI can help make the industry more sustainable and innovative, how properly leveraging customer insights can transform the retail experience, and what the challenges in doing so are from an ethical standpoint.  

Guest: Aimee van Wynsberghe, Alexander von Humboldt Professor for Applied Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, University of Bonn 

Co-host: Wouter Kolk, CEO of Ahold Delhaize Europe and Indonesia 

Listen to the episode below, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts! 

To learn more, we recently had the opportunity to meet with Seema Singh, Ahold Delhaize's Vice President of Identity Access Management. We were lucky enough to learn more about Seema’s role, her enthusiasm and passion for ICT, how she began her career and the challenges faced in the ICT industry for women.  

First thing’s first, what is Identity and Access Management (IAM)? Seema explains it simply: “Identity and Access Management helps improve the user experience of our associates as they try to obtain access to do their daily jobs in a secure and compliant manner. This includes the login and authentication steps needed throughout the day, as well as taking the steps needed to obtain new access into applications. This also involves improving the stability, uptime and performance of our systems that provide these capabilities. IAM is important because it provides a smooth seamless secure and compliant way for authorized people to gain access into Ahold Delhaize’s systems and data.”  

Seema, when did you decide to dedicate your career to IT?  

I still remember back in the early days of the internet and personal computing. There was a lot of buzz about all the new technologies and spanking new devices you got to own that seemingly had endless power and possibilities! And I certainly got caught up in that wave of excitement! About that time, I applied for and got admission into the computer science program at the University of Alabama – it was like a new world had opened for me and honestly, I couldn’t have asked for more. I haven’t looked back since then.  

Were there any meaningful life events or people that you met along the way that helped shape your career path? 

To be honest, I haven’t ever sat down and planned a career path for myself. Instead, I’ve allowed my curiosity to be my guide and I must say it has taken me to great and interesting places. However, I have had my fair share of influencers in my career. In fact, I wouldn’t have ever even considered going for a senior leadership role in Cybersecurity had it not been for a dear friend and mentor of mine who spent days convincing me of the value I could bring to the table by putting my name out there for consideration for my boss’s role. I consider myself lucky to have had a well-wisher who took it upon himself to challenge me to get out of my comfort zone, and to realize my potential. I had never seen myself as lacking the drive or passion and yet it took some severe yet well intended prodding to open my eyes to the possibilities. This was when I truly realized how women often opt out, and don’t challenge themselves enough or sometimes at-all. I was lucky to have someone look out for me. Not everyone is as fortunate.  

What challenges do you think women in tech are facing today? What challenges have you experienced?  

The world of IT in general and Cybersecurity in particular, has always suffered from a shortage in female representation. I recently read that women account for only two of ten cybersecurity professionals, despite representing almost half of the global workforce. Why do we have this big disparity? I mentioned earlier how women frequently did not consider themselves in the running for ambitious leadership roles. Well, it is the same for technology and cybersecurity roles – women don’t often see themselves in these roles because they don’t see other women in those positions, this needs to change. The low representation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, so we must pay special attention to enable active mentoring and guiding female talent.  

What advice would you give to large organizations – including Ahold Delhaize – to attract more girls to the tech and ICT industry? 

Catch them early and get them excited about a career in tech and ICT while they’re still in school. Bring in role models that they can associate with. Draw a roadmap for them and show them the possibilities, not only of how their future can shape up, but also of how they can shape up the future for everyone. 

Held at our Global Support Office in Zaandam, the Netherlands, the conference proved to be a great event that saw more than 100 like-minded people in the same room and where inspiring tech leaders from great leading Dutch companies discussed the challenges and solutions they're working on. The conference and speakers covered the following three key topics: 

1. How infrastructure for machine learning projects needs to be organized and what tools can be used 
2. How to organize teams to speed up time to the market for machine learning products 
3. How to go about challenging machine learning projects 

Key highlights from speakers 

During the event, speakers from (but not limited to) ING, Lely, Schiphol, codebeez.nl, Albert Heijn, bol.com and Ahold Delhaize presented the following insights from their MLOps projects.   

Joshua Lee, Tech Lead at ING

Joshua discussed why adopting MLOps can be challenging in an enterprise. His key takeaway: there is no one “right” MLOps tool for the job. In a large organization, all tools needed for MLOps already exist. It is important not to focus on fancy tooling, but on users and data scientists.  

Anastasija Efremovska, Platform Engineer & Quiran Storey, Software Engineer at bol.com 

Anastasija shared their story about the journey of self-service developer platforms. They rethought the existing proposition that focused on one group of users – java microservice developers, and extended it to other groups, such as the data science community and developers building custom infrastructure. It made a huge difference in making all groups of users truly autonomous.   

Guus Verstegen, Data Scientist at Albert Heijn

Guus shared how he is working on a daily demand forecast solution for more than 1,000 stores and more than 20,000 products with a goal to reduce waste and provide better on-shelf availability. Key takeaway: the right choice of tooling, an autonomous way of working, shared knowledge and responsibility in the team are all key for developing and supporting such a crucial data science product for Albert Heijn. 

Mariia Vechtomova, MLOps Transformation Manager European Business Services at Ahold Delhaize

Mariia discussed building a MLOps framework that is designed to help data science teams significantly reduce time to market for machine learning products. Main takeaway: it is important to be pragmatic when it comes to building MLOps framework, start small and show the value as soon as possible. 

Tim Rietveld, Machine Learning Engineer at Lely

Tim focussed on bringing Machine Learning models to edge devices. He discussed how Machine Learning compliers can help to solve several challenges like different toolstack that Machine Learning and embedded engineers use and creating more autonomy across different teams. This topic is becoming increasingly as more organizations need to have Machine Learning models on edge devices. 

Mariska van Willigen and Paolo Radaelli, Machine Learning Engineers at Albert Heijn

Mariska talked about new architecture of dynamic markdowns, an important machine learning product at Albert Heijn that contributes to a major goal: waste reduction. Mariska and Paolo went through the limitations of the current architecture and how those get resolved with the new architecture. Changing architecture of a product running in production can be tough, that it is why it’s important to have clear communication within the team and with the stakeholders – keep it small and make it work fast.  

Justin van Dongen, Data Engineer at Schiphol

Justin discussed reusable infrastructure for data science products. As one of Schiphol’s goals is to be autonomous, data will have a big role in achieving this. With this comes a continuously growing field of AI where the need for control grows. Justin explained how he helped to improve the maintainability of their environment, whilst keeping flexibility for the Data Scientists using MLOps principles. 

Arne Muller, Machine Learning Engineer European Business Services at Ahold Delhaize

Arne shared insight into improved deployment of a cross-selling model that creates suggestions of the products for customers at the checkout page of multiple Ahold Delhaize brands: Mega Image, Maxi, Alfa Beta, Delhaize using an MLOps framework. The current MLOps framework allows deployment to another brand within a month compared to 9 months previously. 

Luuk van der Velden, Python AI Engineer at codebeez.nl 

Luuk discussed his assignment at NS and how they set up lambda architecture for real time train crowdedness predictions and used stream processing for updating timetables and anonymizing customer data. Key takeaway: it is important to choose your architecture wisely taking into consideration costs and development complexity. 

Delhaize has been one of Belgium’s favourite retail brands for over 155 years: 4 out of 5 Belgian consumers shop at Delhaize. Delhaize is the leader for fresh, healthy, quality food with an emphasis on sustainability. The company has a large network of 764 locations in Belgium and is a pioneer in terms of digitalisation, in particular with its SuperPlus digital customer loyalty program.   

Currently there are already 636 independent affiliated Delhaize stores under the AD Delhaize, Proxy Delhaize and Shop & Go brand names. With the proposed change, all Delhaize stores will be brought in line under one model, which in turn will stimulate investment in a sustainable future for Delhaize. Thanks to their strong local presence and flexible business hours, affiliated stores can quickly and successfully adapt to ever-evolving consumer needs and the market in general. The adapted model also presents local entrepreneurs with a unique opportunity to join Delhaize and develop the brand’s future, together with our experienced, skilled supermarket employees.  

Delhaize continues to build on its strong, unique position on the Belgian retail market  

Delhaize has a strong, unique position on the Belgian retail market and its intention is to continue developing it. Delhaize will continue to invest in centrally in areas such as logistics, sourcing and marketing to provide optimum services to its network of stores.   

Wouter Kolk, CEO Ahold Delhaize Europe & Indonesia: “Ahold Delhaize supports the intention to transform to one operating model announced today by the Delhaize management team. Delhaize plays an important role within our family of brands in Europe and the intention communicated today is aimed at strengthening Delhaize. By having the 128 local stores operated by local entrepreneurs in the future, they will have a better opportunity to respond to local conditions.”  

This announcement does not apply to the locations in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. 

Delhaize's press release can be found here.  

Cautionary notice 

This communication includes forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Words and expressions such as intention, transform, strengthen, will, future, opportunity, continues, aimed or other similar words or expressions are typically used to identify forward-looking statements. 

Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and that may cause actual results of Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V. (the “Company”) to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth in the Company’s public filings and other disclosures. Forward-looking statements reflect the current views of the Company’s management and assumptions based on information currently available to the Company’s management. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and the Company does not assume any obligation to update such statements, except as required by law. 

"If we want to ensure that electric driving becomes truly widespread, we need to make it as easy as possible, for example by giving motorists the opportunity to recharge their car on their driving route or, while doing their weekly shopping. A widespread and freely accessible charging network is indispensable for this and that is where we want to lead the way, with the installation of the largest fast charging network within the retail sector in Belgium," says Xavier Piesvaux, CEO of Delhaize.   

Helping customers, local residents and passers-by save time 

With the 1,800 green-energy-operated charging points that Delhaize will install in its parking lots in the coming years, the supermarket chain wants to offer an extra service to its customers. During their shopping visit, which takes about 35 to 40 minutes on average, they can charge their electric vehicle up to 80% full via the fast charging point. In this way, Delhaize is on board with its customers, who save time by being able to combine filling up their car with shopping. A charge point can be reserved remotely in advance so that customers can be sure of their charge, and payment can be made by bank card, charge card or via the Electra application.  

In addition, the charging points are also there for local residents who do not have a private charging station. They can (also outside opening hours) use ordinary, slower charging points at Delhaize car parks to charge their cars. The retailer also wants to make life easier for passers-by whose route includes a Delhaize. They can stop over, fill up and maybe do some quick shopping in the meantime. "That way we can also attract new customers. People who otherwise would not shop at Delhaize might now do so because of the convenience they experience by combining grocery shopping and filling up," Piesvaux said.   

Ease of use is key

Drivers will be able to charge their cars 24 hours a day at a competitive rate. The charging stations each have a capacity of 150kW, i.e. 75 kW per charging point. To develop its fleet of fast charging stations, Delhaize is working with the young French company Electra, a specialist in fast charging of vehicles. Electra is investing more than €100 million in this project, in partnership with EDI (Electric by D'Ieteren), which wants to distinguish itself by focusing on more than just charging infrastructure available at home or in the office.   

"The love that Delhaize has for good and healthy food, Electra has for mobility. We have succeeded in finding a partner where - as with us - the customer is at the center, resulting in an ease of use that other suppliers find difficult to match," Piesvaux said. "We in turn are also very happy with the cooperation," said Augustin Derville, General Manager of Electra BeLux. "We are helping thousands of Belgian drivers find a charging station in their neighborhood who can save a lot of time with this and are determined to make charging as easy as possible."  

Transition to sustainable mobility   

It is a very conscious decision by the retailer to install fast charging points specifically for electric cars and bring them even closer to people. In this way, it wants to help society in the important transition it is facing, namely that towards sustainable mobility. "Delhaize's ambition in terms of sustainability and reducing CO2 emissions is great," says Xavier Piesvaux. "Our sustainability program The Lions Footprint consists of numerous actions to reduce CO2 emissions as sharply as possible, among other things. All our stores are CO2 neutral, by 2050 we will have reduced our CO2 emissions by 50% and our head office and distribution centers are equipped with 330 green charging points for charging electric (company) cars. But it's not just about what we do ourselves: we believe that as a retailer we can play an important role and really encourage people to eat better, live better and now also move more sustainably."   

 Ahold Delhaize chose to tackle food waste as the first Kickstart AI challenge due to scale of this global problem. The cross-company AI team – which included talent from Ahold Delhaize, ING, KLM, and NS – worked with one of our great local brands, Delhaize Belgium. In three sprint weeks, the team worked on improving a complicated demand forecasting model that predicts Delhaize Belgium’s customer demand and helps balance product availability and waste.  

To predict customer demand as accurately as possible, the Kickstart AI team took a variety of factors and data into account. Such as product discounts, the time of day or week, and even the weather. The algorithm then looked at the relationship between all these inputs and resulting customer demand. As the algorithm processes more data, from a larger number of inputs, it can more accurately understand the impact of future conditions on customer demand.  

The results...  
As of now, after several months of testing at Delhaize Belgium’s operation, the Kickstart AI team is extremely pleased to see the improvement of their demand forecasting. In fact, the model has become 26% more accurate and this will help reduce Delhaize Belgium’s food waste by 21%. 

Overall, this challenge was an important learning experience for Kickstart AI as it demonstrated that as a team, joint expertise, collaboration and talent can transform everyday life. The team also noted three key achievements:  

1. Kickstart AI brought together and helped develop AI talent from leading Dutch companies to tackle a Global challenge. 
2. By improving Delhaize Belgium’s demand forecasting model, Kickstart AI now has an opportunity to reduce food waste further, potentially across all of Ahold Delhaize’s brands.  
3. Most importantly, the Kickstart AI team learned that by bringing together a range of backgrounds and experience, they can solve complex problems which benefit the communities all of our brands serve.

Check out the video below to learn more! 

About Kickstart AI  

Kickstart AI is a bold initiative by four corporates (Ahold Delhaize, ING, KLM and NS) to give back to the community. Through ongoing funding and pooling of data science resources, they created and continue to foster a thriving AI community. As such, kickstart AI is uniquely positioned to drive AI adoption and tackle real-world challenges at scale.  
 

• It serves multiple Ahold Delhaize brands in Europe and the U.S.  
• The plant builds on a long tradition. The first Delhaize wine bottling plant opened in 1880. 
• Capacity of bottling 18.000 bottles per hour. 
• Reducing carbon emissions through bulk transportation.

In the bottling plant, wines from different vineyards from around the world arrive in bulk, in tankers or via containers. They are stored in large barrels in the wine cellar until they are ready to be bottled. Before the wine is bottled or boxed and goes to the store, the wine goes through a number of processes such as filtering. The filtration and storage processes are still carried out in the traditional way. 

Reducing carbon emissions through bulk transportation   
It is the ambition to bottle a natural product such as wine in a sustainable way. That is why Delhaize has invested in sustainable systems such as water and heating for cleaning and maintaining the temperature in the building. Besides that, the wine is stored underground as there is an almost constant temperature in winter and summer without the need for cooling or heating. Importing wine from all over the world in bulk, instead of bottled wines not only halves transportation costs, it also reduces the wine's carbon emissions. 

Sharing expertise 
Delhaize wants to continue to offer affordable high-quality wine to customers. The wine that is bottled in the new plant will not only be available in Delhaize stores, but also at other brands within Ahold Delhaize. By doing so, the brands are sharing expertise with a focus on innovation, sustainability and affordable prices for customers.  

Wouter Kolk, CEO Ahold Delhaize Europe & Indonesia:  

"The great local brands of Ahold Delhaize all have their own special or local expertise. I am always proud when we can share knowledge in a way that benefits our other brands, and their customers. Today it becomes clear that Delhaize’s 140+ years of experience in bottling wines is taken to an even more ambitious level. My congratulations to the Delhaize team for this strong and sustainable achievement!"

Art of the heritage Wine has always been an important product for Delhaize. Shortly after Delhaize was founded in 1867, it opened its own wine bottling plant in 1880 in Brussels. This tradition continues with the opening of the new, high-tech wine bottling plant which can bottle the equivalent of 14 Olympic swimming pools per year and has a storage capacity of three million liters of wine. 

New wine bottling plant in numbers: 

• Investment of €30 million 
• 9,500 m² surface area 
• Serves multiple Ahold Delhaize brands: Delhaize, Albert Heijn, Gall & Gall, AB Vassilopoulos, Mega Image, Albert, Hannaford and Food Lion.  
• Storage capacity of three million liters of wine 
• 18,000 bottles bottled per hour  
• Four bottle lines 
• 8 km of pipes in which wine is transported 
• 150 different wines 
• 73 employees and wine experts 
• Half of the bottles sold at Delhaize come from this bottling plant 

Cycloon and bol.com want to make delivery both sustainable and more social, and by working together, these two companies are accelerating this ambition. As the delivery of parcels with cargo bikes is emission-free and helps keep residential areas safe, Cycloon's bicycle couriers make the difference in this as they deliver parcels throughout the Netherlands. Cycloon employs hundreds of people with a (former) distance from the labor market – and within the last twenty years, Cycloon has grown into the largest sustainable and social bicycle network in the world. 

Cycloon-red and bol.com-blue  Cycloon operates in more than sixty cities in the Netherlands and that number will continue to grow. The partnership between Cycloon and bol.com is visually reinforced by the fact that both brands are visible on some of the cargo bikes. The logos of these are white, and the recognizable Cycloon red and bol.com blue provide great recognition in the streetscape. At the same time, Cycloon has also developed a completely new corporate identity and will continue to exist as an independent brand on, for example, cargo bikes, clothing and other expressions.  

Watch the video here 

About Cycloon 
Cycloon is the leader in green and social delivery. Cycloon's mission is to set the delivery market in motion, so that it becomes greener and more social. Based on this mission, Cycloon took the initiative in 2016 to set up a national bicycle courier network and now delivers to more than 60 cities. Thus, a nationwide parcel service with about 950 bicycle couriers became a reality. In addition, Cycloon employs 650 mail deliverers with a (former) distance from the labor market. For more information: www.cycloon.eu   

During this month, the garden will grow herbs and salads such as basil varieties, mint, dill and red leaf lettuce. Customers can also purchase these items and see how it’s grown within the supermarket. 

This innovation was introduced in cooperation with Czech start-up, GreeenTech and represents a unique solution. GreenTech is a technology company that specializes in indoor farming that is self-sufficient and produces its own fresh produce made specially for restaurants, offices or urban communities. About the collaboration with Albert, Dmitrij Lipovskij founder of GreeenTech, shares: “Albert is the first retailer who uses this technology directly on the sales floor [in the Czech Republic] and I am very glad, that Albert gave us opportunity to make this concept come alive.”  

Awards
Several  Prijsfavorieten items have also been recognized with awards in the past year. For example, the AH lemon flavored sparkling mineral water has been voted product of the year and AH dishwasher tablets have been awarded as 'best buy' by the Consumers' Association. 

Inspiration and tips 
To provide customers with inspiration, Allerhande – Albert Heijn’s recipe magazine – shows what recipes can be created with Prijsfavorieten products. The most popular is the broccoli macaroni dish. There are also plenty of tips on ah.nl about what you can do to save on groceries. In addition, via the app, customers have the option to exchange their selected groceries for a  Prijsfavorieten item. 

Competition prize  
Over the next two weeks, Albert Heijn will pay extra attention to the  Prijsfavorieten products and customers in 750 stores will have a chance to win a shopping cart full of these own-brand products. Customers can win by estimating the value of the contents of the shopping cart. 

This AA rating also reflects the efforts of Ahold Delhaize and its local brands to manage risks, reduce carbon emissions, and continuously improve a diverse and inclusive workplace. All of these actions – small and large – have contributed to our strong ESG score. 

The unchanged AA score recognizes that Ahold Delhaize’s ESG practices lead those of global peers and are well-aligned with shareholder interests. Overall, it exemplifies that we’re a leading company in managing the most significant ESG risks and opportunities in the industry. As the MSCI ESG ranking is a primary research tool and a widely used benchmark by investors, this result will further underpin investors understanding of the importance we place on being a business that is fit for the future. 
 
With Healthy and Sustainable as one of the four priorities of Ahold Delhaize’s Leading Together strategy, we will continue to pursue new initiatives in support of our purpose to help customers - Eat well. Save time. Live better.  

That we are living in difficult times is perhaps the understatement of the year. The war in Ukraine is causing an unprecedented energy crisis as well as humanity crisis, commodity prices are going through the roof, and inflation is breaking all records. More than ever, consumers' household budgets are under pressure and household purchasing power is declining. 

Delhaize listens to the concerns of its customers every day and has already made efforts to support them during these special times. Examples of this are the increase of promotions such as 1 + 1 free and the permanent discount (up to 15%) on up to 5,000 products with a Nutri-Score of A or B. More than 7,000 private label products are also sold at prices that are up to 30% lower than national brand equivalents. 

"In times of high inflation, we cannot stand by indifferently as some statistics show that there is a risk that consumers will resort to inferior and less healthy products." Xavier Piesvaux, CEO of Delhaize. "This is not about a stunt of a few weeks." 

Xavier Piesvaux also shared, “50% of customers groceries’ are already private brand products. We have noticed that this figure has increased by a further 10% in recent months. We want to intensify our efforts for these 500 Little Lions, basic products of the house brand Delhaize, and be on the side of the real life of our customers. We never compromise on quality, but we are consciously reducing our margins in order to offer our customers better prices.”  

In the store it will be very clear to customers because the very recognizable Little Lions will indicate which products it concerns so that customers can easily find them. They just have to follow the little "guides". The price reductions will be implemented in all Delhaize stores and also online via delhaize.be. After an analysis, a basket was put together of the 500 most purchased basic products such as fruit and vegetables, pasta, drinks, detergents, hygiene products, but also animal feed. 

"With these price reductions, we want to minimize the price difference with other supermarkets for these 500 basic products. At the same time, we will continue to focus on what characterizes Delhaize: our wide range of healthy, local and high-quality products." Said Xavier Piesvaux. 

Other news

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Bol.com has been an e-commerce platform since 2011 and now has nearly 49,000 Dutch and Belgian entrepreneurs selling their items via bol.com. A growing number of these entrepreneurs purchase logistics services from the company, such as 'Logistics via bol.com', in which bol.com takes care of the entire logistics process – from inventory storage and shipping to customer requests – for the sales partners. This development makes the expansion of the fulfillment center necessary. " In 2017, we put our own bol.com fulfillment center in Waalwijk into operation. The new expansion of this, allows us to continue to provide a good service at increasing volumes, both to customers and to sales partners who sell through bol.com," says Vincent Weijers, Director of Logistics (Chief Operating Officer/COO) at bol.com. "A larger floor space increases storage capacity for sales partners who have outsourced their logistics to us. For our customers, this means that they can count on bol.com's service for a larger part of the assortment, such as delivery on Sundays and in the evening, or delivery within a few hours after ordering."  

Green energy use 

In addition to more space, the expansion of the fulfillment center offers much innovation. It was built to the highest BREEAM certification (Outstanding), a method for assessing sustainability of building projects. The fulfillment center runs on 100% green energy, generated by the solar roof with 13,000 solar panels on the new section and the wind turbines next to the building. A huge shuttle system brings the many hundreds of transport bins with stock items to the right order picker at the right time. The energy released by the braking of the transport bins is also stored and reused.  

Smart Packaging

In order to be able to pack as many customer orders as possible, bol.com is implementing 14 new packing machines in the expansion of its fulfillment center. This includes five multi-pack machines for orders which consist of multiple articles and nine mono-pack machines for orders of one article. With these new packing machines bol.com can pack almost 10,000 orders per hour. They scan the dimensions of one or more articles and fold a cardboard box around them as precisely as possible. In this way, the air in the boxes is limited, less cardboard is needed and more packages can be carried in a truck. The multi-packing machine, which bol.com has been using since last year, is the first machine in the world that can pack multiple items of various sizes in one customized box. What is special is that this machine is suitable for almost the entire bol.com assortment of 41 million articles.

Reducing CO2 emissions

The innovations in the new building will help bol.com to further reduce its CO2 emissions per package. Since early 2022, bol.com has been climate neutral according to the Climate Neutral Certification standard. Together with the international consultancy Climate Neutral Group, bol.com mapped the CO2 emissions of its business processes - from the moment that articles arrive at bol.com in a fulfillment center to the delivery to the customer's door, and everything in between - and set reduction targets according to the rules and guidelines of the Paris Agreement. The emissions that remain are offset by bol.com. For its nearly 49,000 sales partners, bol.com also compensates for operational CO2 emissions.

240,000 m² of floor space

With the commissioning of the expansion, the bol.com fulfillment center now has a floor area of 100,000 m2, which is comparable to 15 soccer fields. Including the floors, the total floor area of the fulfillment center is almost 240,000 m². The expansion was designed by architects and engineering firm DENC and realized by Bouwbedrijf van de Ven from Veghel. Responsible for the mechanization and machinery include SSI Schäfer and CMC Machinery. CEVA Logistics, as a specialized fulfillment party, takes care of the staff and the daily operations at the bol.com fulfillment center.

How does dry misting work? 

Inspired by the morning mist that hangs over crop fields, engineers sought to replicate this natural occurrence and managed to develop a dry misting system. The system is equipped with ultrasonic technology to make the finest mist from the purest filtered water. As the mist floats out of the humidifier through a special diffuser and thinly surrounds supermarket produce, the mist evaporates, the humidity rises, and the temperature drops naturally. This allows the produce to keep important nutrients and have a significantly increased shelf life as it can better retain moisture and stay fresh. 

Pilot expectations 

The installation of the dry misting system in Alfa Beta was completed in early October and Mega Image’s three month pilot began in September. The NfR team has taken the lead in sharing information and coordinating the project, supported by the technical department. In the three months that the pilot will last, several factors will be analyzed. One of the most relevant being the generated savings enabled by decreased shrink/loss and improved sale performance. The NfR team is confident it will be a success and will bring benefits to others.  

In celebration of the grand opening, the company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony with remarks from Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, The GIANT Company President Nicholas Bertram, and Ahold Delhaize USA Supply Chain President Chris Lewis.   

“Today is the culmination of more than two years of collaboration between our team, Ahold Delhaize USA Supply Chain, and our partners at Swisslog and AutoStore resulting in a state-of-the-art facility that will propel our GIANT Direct offering across greater Philadelphia and for the first time, southern New Jersey. Our new GIANT Direct EFC represents the future of grocery and the future of The GIANT Company, as we are one step closer to realizing our full omnichannel aspirations,” said Bertram. 

“The opening of this facility is an exciting step forward as we continue to collaborate to evolve the supply chain network for the future,” said Lewis. “Solutions like micro-fulfilment centers will be an important part of the self-distributed network, positioned to serve customers whenever, wherever, however they want to shop.”    
Since the beginning of this week, the facility also provides GIANT Direct delivery to several New Jersey towns for the first time. . The company plans to introduce GIANT Direct to additional communities in southern New Jersey over the next several months.   

Implementing innovative technology  

As part of The GIANT Company’s commitment to optimizing and growing GIANT Direct for delivery orders and in-store pickup, The GIANT Company is the first Ahold Delhaize USA company to implement this new EFC technology which streamlines order fulfillment by using the latest in robotics, machine learning, and vertical integration. The GIANT Company worked with Ahold Delhaize USA company Peapod Digital Labs, Swisslog, and AutoStore on the project.   

Within the GIANT Direct EFC, two space-saving, 3D grids contain totes filled with fresh and non-perishable groceries. When a customer places a GIANT Direct order, team members work alongside a team of robots that quickly gather the items for bagging. After bagging, GIANT team members place orders into temperature-controlled totes and on to trucks for delivery to customers.   
  
The GIANT Direct EFC offers a selection of product that mirrors a traditional GIANT store’s offerings. The facility will stock more than 22,000 products, enabling The GIANT Company to meet increasing customer demand with greater capacity, faster order fulfillment, and room to grow home grocery delivery. The center is expected to fulfill up to approximately 15,000 home delivery orders per week. 

At Ahold Delhaize’s virtual Investor Day held this week, Selma Postma, Chief Digital Officer Ahold Delhaize Europe & Indonesia, also shared information about The Network Tool (TNT) that was used to help set up the GIANT Direct EFC. TNT is a best in-class network optimization engine that leverages predictive analytics and a wide range of data inputs to give network expansion recommendations that allow brands to maximize the reach and capacity of their e-commerce networks while minimizing operating costs and capital required. The TNT tool was used to determine the ideal location, capacity and coverage of the EFC and has allowed The GIANT Company to optimize capital investments and reduce operating costs. 

The GIANT Company will continue to grow 

The new facility builds on The GIANT Company’s strong presence in Philadelphia, which has grown from one store in 2018 to 10 by the end of 2023. In addition to three GIANT Heirloom Markets and its new Philadelphia flagship Riverwalk store, The GIANT Company will open three new stores by the end of the year.   

The GIANT Company introduced the GIANT Direct brand in February 2019 when it debuted its first e-commerce hub in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Today, the company has more than 150 pickup locations and customers across 90% of the company’s footprint have access to online grocery ordering and delivery services.  

“Selecting product in a distribution center is very physical work, and not only is it very physical, but it’s also critical,” said Chris Lewis, President, Ahold Delhaize USA Supply Chain. “The associates in grocery distribution centers are nothing short of superheroes who keep product flowing through the supply chain to physical and digital store shelves and ultimately to consumers’ tables. This has never been further demonstrated than during the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re proud to pilot solutions like this one that enable us and our partners care for the workforce in distribution centers by helping associates reduce fatigue, work more effectively and reduce the likelihood of injuries.” 

A breakthrough product, Verve’s system is the first lightweight, powered soft exosuit designed for the industrial worker. The device reduces strain on a selector’s back by 30-40% during a typical workday. This means that each 22-pound item feels like 14 pounds, a reduction that really adds up over a shift, a week or a year. During the pilot, feedback from wearers has been positive with a vast majority reporting reduced fatigue, soreness and better posture. The technology doesn’t require any complex integration, takes less than 30 seconds to put on and automatically adapts to the user and task. It also has ample battery life so it can be worn for an entire shift, including overtime. 

Wouter Kolk, CEO Ahold Delhaize Europe explains: “People’s lives have changed significantly in the past year – and it is precisely in these challenging times that we are looking for fresh perspectives. The new On Track platform will contribute to this.”

“We started building the platform in recent months, based on the idea that Ahold Delhaize, in addition to its many other actions for charities, wants to do more for local communities. Research* shows that people have become less sure of their jobs in the past year and need inspiration, positivity and contact. As many as 85% of Dutch people indicate the desire to learn more. “

“We saw a natural match with the knowledge and experience that exists within our company. A total of 180,000 people work at our local brands in Europe. Every year we train and offer new skills to about 40,000 people. As we started to develop this further, On Track was born. I am very proud of the partners who immediately saw the platform’s possibilities – together we can help people move forward in their personal and professional lives.”

Monaïm Benrida, program manager Equal Opportunities Alliance, an initiative of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science , said “We can achieve equal opportunities by giving people optimal opportunities to develop and discover new things. We think it is fantastic that the business community is joining forces to make learning from the best in the business possible for everyone, in a fun and accessible way. We greatly applaud this social initiative and we are proud to be a partner of On Track from the start.”

Short videos

On Track is an app where the best professionals in the business share their expertise and experiences in an accessible and entertaining way. These so-called heroes share their passion to help users of the app to pursue their dreams, big or small, in line with the platform’s slogan, ‘Keep developing yourself and you will always be On Track.’ The platform provides short three-minute videos, interesting assignments and in-depth content, to help users develop new insights and skills to apply in their career and private life. On Track makes learning as easy as checking your Instagram or the latest news.

Launch

The platform will go live in the Netherlands in Dutch on September 1, 2021, with the ambition to roll it out further in Europe at a later date. On Track is free for anyone to use, non-commercial and has no advertisements. The platform will be set up as a foundation named On Track EU. On Track is an Ahold Delhaize initiative that will be further developed with different partners, that will, among other things, deliver experts for the Tracks.

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As of today, people can participate in On Track by registering here and recommend which themes are important to them. This way they can stay informed about new tracks and developments until OnTrack goes live on September 1st. On Track is made possible by various organizations and partners. Anyone who wants to contribute either personally or through their company can contact the organization at ontracknl@aholddelhaize.com.

* Research commissioned by &samhoud, conducted between March 10-22 in the Netherlands with an age group between 16-70, N = 1000

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This communication includes forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Words and expressions such as on track, exploring, will, become, keep, move forward, always, ambition, later date, 1 September, stay or other similar words or expressions are typically used to identify forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and that may cause actual results of Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V. (the “Company”) to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth in the Company’s public filings and other disclosures. Forward-looking statements reflect the current views of the Company’s management and assumptions based on information currently available to the Company’s management. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and the Company does not assume any obligation to update such statements, except as required by law.

The new "Superplus Card" will give customers automatic savings of 5% to 15% on more than 5,000 products with a Nutri-Score of A or B. With this program, Delhaize is giving a clear sign that it is doing everything it can to help customers develop healthier eating habits through a more balanced diet, whatever their budget.

It is one of a wide range of initiatives Ahold Delhaize brands are offering to bring to life our healthy and sustainable strategy by encouraging and rewarding customers for making healthy choices. [Link to H&S strategy]

Over the past 20 years, the level of obesity and overweight in Belgium has increased, despite the fact that many Belgians are making great efforts to live more healthily and eat a more balanced diet. Delhaize wants to contribute to this effort to become a healthier society by going beyond inspiring customers to offer them very concrete solutions. The launch of the SuperPlus program is the latest step in this effort.

Read more about it here

 The opening underscores Ahold Delhaize Coffee Company’s ambition to further strengthen and innovate its own-brand coffee offering, which includes popular brands such as Perla, Delhaize, Latitude 28 and Caffé Gondoliere.  It also highlights the company’s broader sustainability ambition as it transitions to 100% sustainable coffee production.

 The new roasting facility is able to adapt and control the temperature curve in each stage of the roasting process, resulting in more consistent grinding results, improved extraction of full flavor potential, and the creation of more and different flavors. This will enable the Ahold Delhaize Coffee Company to enhance the taste experience of its coffee and tailor its offering to local market preferences. 

 The facility will also help to reduce the company’s climate footprint by cutting its energy consumption by 14%, lowering carbon emissions by 13% and slashing the output of particulate matter by 99%. In recent years, the Ahold Delhaize Coffee Company has undertaken a range of initiatives to increase the sustainability of its entire supply chain, for example, by moving toward fully recyclable packaging and the ability to generate electricity through the installation of 1,500 solar panels on its factory roof. Its Perla and Latitude 28 brands are already 100% climate neutral.

 The Ahold Delhaize Coffee Company traces its roots back to 1895, when Albert Heijn, founder of the Dutch supermarket chain of the same name, started roasting his own coffee in the laundry room behind his first store in Oostzaan. Since then, the business has continued to expand, serving markets across Europe with products ranging from roast and ground coffee, soft coffee pods and whole beans to capsules.

 Nowadays, the company produces 19,000 metric tons of coffee on a yearly basis, an equivalent of more than 3 billion cups of coffee, of which 40% is sold to third-party retailers and wholesalers in Europe. The facility employs 130 associates working throughout the production process, from procurement and blending to roasting and packaging.  

 The Ahold Delhaize Coffee Company is co-founder of the UTZ certification. All its products are 100% UTZ or Fairtrade certified. For all Ahold Delhaize own-brand products the carbon footprint is compensated throughout the supply chain.

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Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and that may cause actual results of Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V. (the “Company”) to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to the risk factors set forth in the Company’s public filings and other disclosures. Forward-looking statements reflect the current views of the Company’s management and assumptions based on information currently available to the Company’s management. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and the Company does not assume any obligation to update such statements, except as required by law.

More than 380 companies were initially scouted for the challenge, with nine reaching the finals of the event. From all over the world the finalists pitched their solutions in two tracks. In the first track, contestants pitched directly applicable cleaning solutions. The winner of that track, Fybots, was selected because of the flexibility of their autonomous solution. They are now invited to conduct in-store pilots at one of Ahold Delhaize’s local brands.

The second track focused on promising future technologies that can be co-developed. Adlatus won this track on the strength of the company’s technical capability. They will now explore a partnership with Ahold Delhaize's AIRLab to co-develop new applications for their robotics technology.

The challenge underscores the ambition of Ahold Delhaize to help create the future of retail, supported by technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and robotics.  

“Smart technology, such as Artificial Intelligence and robotics, offers countless possibilities for the retail industry, the consumer, and society at large,’’ said Frans Muller President and CEO of Ahold Delhaize. ‘’With this challenge, we wanted to further develop our ongoing initiatives and explore how our great local brands and support offices can use this technology to better support associates as they serve customers. I was impressed by the quality of the pitches and the innovation behind the solutions.’’

He added, “A clean environment for associates and customers is now more important than ever. Cleaning tasks are often physically demanding and include many repetitive tasks. Increased cleaning cycles, due to COVID-19, have put teams under a lot of pressure. Robotics can help these associates. By reducing their time spent on repetitive cleaning, associates can focus more on customers, where they can make an even greater difference.’’

About AIRLab Delft

AIRLab Delft is the joint industry lab of Ahold Delhaize and the TU Delft, driving innovations at the intersection of retail, AI and robotics. It recently opened a test site where researchers - supported by RoboValley and tech incubator YES!Delft - can work with partners, students, startups and other companies to build and test prototypes of robotic solutions, and study ethical implications of such solutions.

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Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and that may cause actual results of Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V. (the “Company”) to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to the risk factors set forth in the Company’s public filings and other disclosures. Forward-looking statements reflect the current views of the Company’s management and assumptions based on information currently available to the Company’s management. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and the Company does not assume any obligation to update such statements, except as required by law.

 “It is encouraging to see that grocery retailers are considered trusted custodians of customer data. The outcomes of this report underline the need for continued focus to preserve and build on this trust,” said Wouter Kolk, CEO, Ahold Delhaize Europe & Indonesia. “Ethical data use is at the top of our digital transformation agenda. Every week our brands process 50 million transactions, online and in‑store. Customers trust our brands with their data, whether for checking their home address for grocery deliveries or accessing their shopping history to make shopping easier and receive personalized benefits. Data also enables us to run a more efficient operation, which in turn can help mitigate food waste and improve energy efficiency. 

Only 30% of respondents indicated they are unwilling to share their data with grocery retailers. This indication is more favorable than for most other industries. However, there are significant differences across Europe around the willingness of consumers to share data. In general, respondents are willing to share data about demographics as well as information about the types and frequency of the products they buy — 59% are “very willing or “somewhat willing” to share data regarding product purchase and their level of education. Almost 40% of respondents are willing to share detailed health information such as allergies and heart rate, but only 28% are willing to share locational data. The strongest resistance is to sharing financial information, with two-thirds of respondents being “not at all willing” to share their bank account transactions. 

Wouter Kolk continues: “this extensive report provides many insights into what European customers are willing to share with grocery retailers, against what conditions and for which benefits. An important take away is the clear differences per country, underlining once more the great diversity in the European markets. It also underlines the importance for any multinational company to have clear guidelines with a flexible, decentralized approach to data collection and usage to enable the local brands to do what is right for their customer base.” 

The report ‘The consumer data give and take’ can be accessed here.

The Kickstart AI member companies have committed to establishing joint positions of academic staff to enable private-public collaboration and facilitate researchers’ work in both industry and university settings. Job creation, retention of AI talent, and fostering shared AI knowledge are at the key drivers of the Kickstart AI initiative and recognized as essential elements in supporting economic recovery in the coming years.

Maarten de Rijke’s work with Ahold Delhaize will focus on building intelligent technology to connect people to information. Such solutions include search engines, recommender systems, and conversational assistants. Dr. De Rijke’s research focuses on the intersection of information retrieval and machine learning, where increasingly intelligent machines learn from interactions with users. De Rijke is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and a strong believer in use-inspired research, mixing theory, experimentation, and application. In addition to his work at Ahold Delhaize, De Rijke will remain active as University Professor and as Director of the national Innovation Center for AI (ICAI).

Dr. Ruud van Sloun’s work with Philips seeks to create real-world impact by translating his academic research on AI and signal processing into industrial innovation for next-generation medical diagnostic (imaging) applications. He studied Electrical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) where he received his MSc and PhD degrees, both cum laude in 2014 and 2018, respectively. Earlier this year, he was recognized by the Google faculty research award for his work on model-based deep learning. 

The Kickstart AI joint appointments directly contribute to the development of the broader Dutch AI ecosystem. These positions offer academic researchers and staff the opportunity to have a greater impact to society while strengthening the links between universities and companies as well as increasing innovation and research productivity for both. 

About Kickstart AI

Kickstart AI is a platform aimed at boosting the AI ecosystem in the Netherlands by accelerating and promoting the development of AI technology and nurturing AI talent in the country. The goal of Kickstart AI is to bridge the gap between the Netherlands and other leading countries that have made notable progress in Artificial Intelligence. The platform is driven by five Dutch companies: Ahold Delhaize, ING, NS, KLM and Royal Philips. This joint effort will add educational capacity, foster the development of the AI community in the Netherlands, and reiterate the position of the Netherlands as a competitive and relevant global AI hub. 

For more information visit https://www.kickstartai.nl/

Retail Elements by Oliver Wyman is a suite of digital solutions that embed actionable analytics in workflows, allowing the Ahold Delhaize brands in Europe to make better and faster decisions on their assortments, pricing and promotions, freeing up time to serve customers and promote innovation.

“This is an important step as we leverage our scale to develop and share capabilities across Europe, enabling each brand to serve their customers in the best possible way,” said Wouter Kolk, CEO of Ahold Delhaize Europe & Indonesia. “Oliver Wyman brings deep retail expertise and its digital solutions enable us to make the best merchandising decisions. With this collaboration, the brands will enhance choice and value for customers across Europe while also enabling us to attract new talent.”

The collaboration builds on a long relation between Ahold Delhaize and Oliver Wyman. The relationship between the two companies in Europe started with the successful implementation of the assortment optimization tool at Albert Heijn in Netherlands and was expanded to Delhaize Belgium more recently. Additionally, Albert Heijn and Oliver Wyman in 2019 jointly developed a pricing tool which is now being rolled out across all categories, to further build its pricing capabilities.

“We are excited about further strengthening our relationship with Ahold Delhaize and supporting them with their ambitious capability agenda,” said Coen de Vuijst, partner with Oliver Wyman’s Amsterdam office. “It is a pleasure to be collaborating with the talented European and brand teams of Ahold Delhaize and we are looking forward to the journey ahead of us.”

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Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and that may cause actual results of Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V. (the “Company”) to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to the risk factors set forth in the Company’s public filings and other disclosures. Forward-looking statements reflect the current views of the Company’s management and assumptions based on information currently available to the Company’s management. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and the Company does not assume any obligation to update such statements, except as required by law.

He said the impact of COVID-19 has been very different for food retailers than other nonessential businesses. “Our challenge was how to keep up with demand that spiked across all channels. In some of our major banners we had 500 times the normal online traffic, and we had to figure out how to serve these customers.

While food retail has traditionally lagged in its adoption of eCommerce, the situation is changing. “Even three months ago, people predicted that eCommerce penetration would taper off in the high teens in the next five to seven years, causing retailers to question investing in this channel. But now, all the scenario models have changed –appetite and openness to online shopping have transformed – it’s quite inspiring! 

Farhan outlined the many ways we’ve worked to create a safe environment in our stores, where the bulk of our sales still happen, and discussed how COVID-19 is affecting the customer journey. “Convenience and value will continue to be the two most important value propositions, with hygiene and health emerging as a third.” As the customer journey becomes more digital, data-driven and personalized, he said that everything we do so is becoming more connected, automated and real time. And the pace of change has grown exponentially faster. “The time horizon in which we make decisions, act, take risks and launch products to market has shrunk from months to weeks now.”

The trend towards contactless shopping is being accelerated by COVID-19. “We’ve seen self-checkout spike to almost 50% of our transactions, and I believe we’ll see small format autonomous stores – the holy grail of contactless shopping – going to market faster than anyone expected. We’re looking at guide paths in the stores, cleaning robots, and even starting to think about scheduled shopping and how to be more transparent with customers about how many people are in a store in a more systematic way.”

Farhan talked about how technology can help with one of the major barriers to online shopping: customers don’t always trust other people to pick their products. “We’re looking at algorithms that will help us communicate with customers about substitutions during the packing process. Faster delivery – same day within two hours – will also help.” He mentioned we’re even looking at geofencing and advanced payment systems to make click and collect more contactless. “Also, how do we make delivery at your door contactless? These are the innovations that will build trust with customers.” Farhan believes this trust will ensure trend toward online shopping continues after the COVID-19 crisis. “These are fundamental shifts that will change the paradigm in this industry.”

​Ahold Delhaize’s AI for Retail (AIR) Lab Delft is globally challenging smart startups, scale-ups and other technical virtuosos for a robotic autonomous store cleaning solution.​

​Looking for the cleaning solution of tomorrow​

In supermarkets, floors are cleaned once a day before each store opens. It takes cleaning personnel an average of two hours every morning to sweep the floors for dirt, mop the hard-to-reach corners, and then go through the store with a ride-on floor scrubber. It is certainly both a time-consuming and labor-intensive activity. ​

Ahold Delhaize’s AI for Retail (AIR) Lab is looking for a partner that can automate this process by creating an autonomous cleaning robot. 

How?​

Read more here! 

​About AIRLab​

The AIRLab Delft is the joint industry lab of Ahold Delhaize and the TU Delft, driving innovations at the intersection of retail, AI and robotics. It recently opened a test site where researchers - supported by RoboValley and tech incubator YES!Delft - can work with partners, students and startups to build and test prototypes of robotic solutions.​

​

“For nearly a century, we’ve been a trusted part of the communities we serve, helping families come together to share a meal and create special memories,” said Nicholas Bertram, president, The GIANT Company. “For us, food and families go hand in hand and as we look to our future, we wanted to make sure our name reflects all we aspire to be as an omni-channel retailer. We are proud of the role our brand has played in connecting millions of families, and as The GIANT Company, we will continue to passionately serve our customers and communities for a better future.”

From its humble beginnings in 1923 as a two-man butcher shop to an omni-channel retailer in 2020, the company currently operates 186 stores across four states, offering families an array of services that have grown beyond groceries to include grocery delivery and pickup, catering, in-store pharmacies, nutrition education and on-site fuel stations. Named the 2019 Retailer of the Year by Supermarket News, today’s news comes as the company positions itself for future growth in 2020 and beyond.

The logo for each banner in the family of brands - GIANT, MARTIN’S, GIANT Heirloom Market, GIANT DIRECT and MARTIN’S DIRECT - has been refreshed, offering a fresh take on the company’s widely recognized logos. The most notable characteristic of the new logo is the leaf that is part of the “A” in each banner’s name, designed to signify The GIANT Company’s commitment to growth and freshness.

Additionally, The GIANT Company will utilize a contemporary color and design scheme, underscoring the brand’s modern, fun and caring culture as well as its promise to grow alongside its customers and team members.

Immediately, the new GIANT logo can be seen on the exterior of The GIANT Center, a 10,500-seat multi-purpose arena located in Hershey and the company’s headquarters in Carlisle. Over the course of the year, the company will integrate its new name and logo into its operations.

Added Bertram, “Even though our name and logo are changing, our commitment to the families we serve isn’t; in fact, it’s only getting stronger. As a purpose-driven organization, we are laser-focused on our goal of making a difference in the lives of those we serve, inside our stores, online and deep within our communities. Starting with the heart and soul of our company – our more than 33,000 team members –The GIANT Company will live its purpose, providing a simplified experience and inspiring fresh ideas, while creating healthier communities for today, tomorrow and beyond.”

A joint appointment of academic staff represents a concrete investment in private-public collaboration, by enabling researchers to work in both industry and in university. The Kickstart AI members, Ahold Delhaize, ING, KLM, NS and Philips, have each committed to establishing five joint appointments to academic institutions in the Netherlands, representing 25 positions in total. These joint appointments are designed to increase educational capacity for AI Bachelor and Master students in the Netherlands. They will also address several additional issues within the field of AI research in the Netherlands, including the AI talent drain and the development of a local Dutch AI eco-system.  

The positions provide benefits to the academics through access to company resources while simultaneously working on real-world problems facing the companies. In addition, these joint appointments strengthen the links between universities and companies in order to develop a more efficient innovation pipeline and increase research productivity for both. 

Sebastian Schelter’s research focuses on the intersection of data management and machine learning. He has extensive experience in building real world systems for companies such as Amazon Research, Twitter, IBM Research and Zalando. In addition to his theoretical and business achievements, Sebastian has a strong belief that modern data analysis can have a significant impact in answering pressing societal questions.  

Dr. Schelter’s work with Ahold Delhaize will focus on effectively managing vast quantities of data and enable the deployment of algorithmic solutions. Such solutions include better forecasting product demand for stores and more efficient routing of trucks, both of which could reduce waste. Dr. Schelter will start on 1 April 2020.  

Nicola Pezzotti’s research at Philips focuses on the development of advanced medical imaging and health informatics solutions enabled by AI. His work covers both theoretical research as well as the implementation of large and stable software algorithms to empower AI researchers and developers.  

Dr. Pezzotti obtained his PhD cum laude from Delft University of Technology, and he has worked at the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (INRIA) in France as a visiting scientist. More joint appointments will be announced in the coming months. 

About Kickstart AI 

Kickstart AI is a platform aimed at boosting the AI ecosystem in the Netherlands by accelerating and promoting the development of AI technology and nurturing AI talent in the country. The goal of Kickstart AI is to bridge the gap between the Netherlands and other leading countries that have made notable progress in Artificial Intelligence. The platform is driven by five Dutch companies: Ahold Delhaize, ING, KLM, NS and Royal Philips. This joint effort will add educational capacity, foster the development of the AI community in the Netherlands, and reiterate the position of the Netherlands as a competitive and relevant global AI hub. 

For more information visit https://www.kickstartai.nl/ 

The omni-channel fulfillment center will be GIANT’s largest and support its ecommerce brand GIANT DIRECT, which has experienced double-digit growth since its launch last year. 

The center will provide more capacity, better distribution and room to grow home delivery and in-store pick-up for online orders. GIANT will partner with Peapod Digital Labs to drive the innovation development for the facility.   

Two new stores will be built across Pennsylvania. A fourth GIANT Heirloom Market and urban flagship store in Philadelphia have already been announced for completion this year. The 35 remodelled stores will help to simplify shopping with optimized product assortment, streamlined order pickup, improved merchandise displays and modernized décor.  

2019 was a year of unprecedented growth for GIANT as it opened 17 new stores and launched two new brands. It was also named Retailer of the Year by Supermarket News.  

In the United States, Retail Business Services, the services company of Ahold Delhaize USA will demo its frictionless store at the National Retail Federation (NRF) Big Show in January 2020. The store is already being piloted at the company’s office in Quincy Massachusetts. The technology has been developed in partnership with UST Global and Intel. 

Inside the store, artificial intelligence detects which products are being removed from shelves and body skeletal tracking connects the right products to the right shopper. Services such as PayPal, Venmo, Apply Pay and Google Pay are integrated into the wallet. 

In Europe, Albert Heijn has set up a digital store at Schiphol Airport for a 2-month trial. Customers scan their contactless debit card to enter. In the store, customers take products and sensors keep track of which products they take or put back on the shelves. Cameras determine the position of customers without using facial recognition. This allows the store to monitor who is taking what from the shelves.  

The payment system was developed with American tech startup AiFi and Dutch bank ING. Payment takes place automatically as customers exit the store. Customers do not have to register in advance or download an app. 

Ahold Delhaize, ING, KLM, NS and Philips announce Kickstart AI, a combination of actions to fuel AI education, talent and innovation in the Netherlands.

Zaandam, the Netherlands, October 10, 2019 – Five Dutch companies Ahold Delhaize, ING, KLM, NS and Philips aim to further boost the AI ecosystem in the Netherlands by accelerating and promoting the development of AI technology and nurturing AI talent in the country. This effort will add educational capacity, foster the development of the AI community in the Netherlands and reiterate the position of the Netherlands as a competitive and relevant global AI hub.

The goal of Kickstart AI, is to bridge the AI gap between the Netherlands and other countries, like the UK, the US and China, that have made notable progress in this area. In order to keep the country’s position as a pioneer and inventor of technologies, the Dutch government, companies, organizations and universities have ground to cover in terms of structural investments and availability of global AI talent. The five companies “kickstarting” AI are, for the first time, uniting forces in this kind of joint initiative and taking highly needed decisive action.

The five companies initiating Kickstart AI are calling for the critical expansion of local knowledge and talent in order to ethically implement AI that is focused not only on what is technically possible but also meeting the ethical and social standards the Dutch society may expect. Collaboration among these five companies, the government, industry and other tech providers will help address societal challenges, provide new opportunities for the youth and accelerate the introduction of AI in the Netherlands. For consumers, AI has untapped potential to help improve their daily lives by elevating their experience with personalized service, convenience and choices in many areas of life such as food, travel, health and finances.

Initiatives under Kickstart AI include:

• AI superchallenges: Competitions aimed at raising the Netherlands’ global profile by mobilizing global AI talent to address societal challenges for example in the areas of health and mobility.
• Joint appointments: Investing in private-public collaboration through joint appointments of academic staff, providing access for the next generation of AI talent to education, training and leading academics. First commitment is to create 5 joint appointments to academic institutions in the Netherlands by each of the frontrunner companies in Kickstart AI, adding up to 25 positions in total.
• Dutch national course for AI: As part of a wider effort to increase understanding and adoption of AI in the Netherlands, Kickstart AI companies will not only promote the national course for AI among the general public and their own workforces, but also offer the course in English, therewith aiming to secure sign-ups from a total of 170,000 people in the Netherlands by the end of 2020.

Introducing Kickstart AI at the World Summit AI today, Maarten de Rijke, Professor at the University of Amsterdam and Director of the Innovation Center for Artificial Intelligence, said: “The Netherlands has always been a technology pioneer, a frontrunner in AI development and innovation. The quality of our AI specialists is well-acknowledged worldwide. However, without a national AI strategy and swift action, the severe shortage of AI talent in our country remains one of the biggest roadblocks to realizing the full potential of AI talent and technology. The joint efforts between universities and companies, as part of Kickstart AI, underlines the urgency in accelerating AI education and talent retention and signals our commitment to collaboration and investments needed to accelerate AI innovation in the Netherlands.”

Ahold Delhaize, ING, KLM, NS and Philips are connected to the daily lives of millions of people through food, travel, health and finances. As organizations that are close to the lives of everyday Dutch society, they fully understand the game-changing potential for AI to improve everyday life in the Netherlands. This is why they have joined together in a call for action to their business and industry peers, to boost collaboration in creating a thriving AI ecosystem in the Netherlands for the benefit of end-consumers’ daily lives. The Strategic Action Plan AI (SAPAI) and the Netherlands’ AI Coalition, also announced this week, are complementary steps in the same direction and designed to collectively sustain the growth and competitiveness of the Dutch economy.

Watch the video here:

NOTES TO EDITORS

AI innovation projects currently underway at five partner companies

• Ahold Delhaize – Customer interaction and conversational intelligence
  Addresses developments in the field of digital Customer Interaction, especially in the field of conversational technologies such as search, chatbots or multimodal interactions relying on federated search.

• ING – AI for Know Your Customer Operations
  Protecting the consumers, business and the society against financial crime is at the core of ING’s business. Deploying smarter mechanisms by using advanced analytics techniques and AI is therefore of crucial importance.

• KLM - Integrated Optimization of Airline Operations
  In an increasingly complex and busy environment, the reliability of an airline’s operations is a growing competitive advantage. Advanced machine learning prediction tools will enable control on costs, operational performance, customer satisfaction and employee engagement.

• NS – Predictive Maintenance
  Safe and reliable service of the railway network is increasingly important, in particular in a time where transportation is undergoing a paradigm shift to “zero emission.”

• Philips – Artificial Intelligence in consumer health and professional healthcare
  Philips combines the power of AI and other technologies with clinical and operational domain knowledge to help its customers deliver on the quadruple aim in healthcare of improved patient experience, better health outcomes, improved staff experience, and lower cost of care. Philips’ products and solutions enhance healthcare providers, adapt to the context and they are seamlessly integrated in their workflows.

Dutch AI facts and figures

• The five Kickstart AI companies reach millions of customers in the Netherlands each week:
  • Ahold Delhaize employs around 100.000 employees in the Netherlands, through its Albert Heijn, Etos, Gall & Gall, and bol.com brands. Together these brands serve around 13 million consumers per week
  • ING employs over 13.800 employees in the Netherlands. ING’s customers are increasingly digital. ING has more than 38 million customers in 13 retail markets which results in 3 billion contact moments a year.
  • KLM employs over 26.800 employees in the Netherlands
  • NS employs over 21.000 employees and serves 1.3 million passengers per day in the Netherlands.
  • Philips employs around 11.600 employees in the Netherlands and improves the lives of 27 million people a year in the Benelux.

• The National AI Course was launched on 21 December 2018 and to date more than 42.000 people have taken the AI course.
• A recent report indicates that 340 PhD AI researchers work in the Netherlands, with 57 of them having presented at AI conferences versus the US with 9,010 researchers of which 3,017 are presented (Source: Global AI Talent Pool Report 2018).
• In 2018, 309 Dutch AI startups received €102M in investments compared to 1,052 AI startups in the UK with €1.2Bn investments. Of these investments into Dutch startups, 20% came from Dutch investors.
• With 309 AI startups, the Netherlands is home to 3% of the total number of AI startups worldwide. However, the Netherlands invests only 1% of the global total in AI, in comparison to 48% of China’s investment (Source: StartupDelta 2018).

Media contacts

https://www.aholddelhaize.com/en/media/

https://www.ing.com/Newsroom/Media-relations-contacts.htm

https://news.klm.com/

https://nieuws.ns.nl/

https://www.philips.com/content/corporate/en_AA/about/news/contacts.html/

Cautionary notice

This press release is issued in the English and Dutch language. In case of conflict between the two press releases, the English version shall prevail.

This communication includes forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Words and expressions such as to further boost, aim, will, commitment, effort, by 2020, may, expect or other similar words or expressions are typically used to identify forward-looking statements. 

Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and that may cause actual results of Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V. (the “Company”) to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth in the Company’s public filings and other disclosures. Forward-looking statements reflect the current views of the Company’s management and assumptions based on information currently available to the Company’s management. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and the Company does not assume any obligation to update such statements, except as required by law.

The Solvo Group, based in Utrecht, operates various websites including solvo.nl, gezondheidsplein.nl, doktordokter.nl and ziekenhuis.nl. It is the largest online health information platform in the Netherlands, while also operating a booking platform with around 5,000 active healthcare specialists.

Through the web platforms, customers can ask questions about their health, find information about disorders, treatments, exercise, nutrition and other wellness topics, and communicate with care specialists. They can receive personal solutions and advice and make healthcare appointments online. In the Etos stores, customers can get personal advice from one of the 2400 certified Etos associates and find self-care medicines.

“With this acquisition, Etos will soon be able to help customers both day and night with the right advice and the products and services that will help them feel comfortable every day. The combination of our physical stores with the Solvo platforms is an important step in our goal of realizing the new drugstore, where information, advice and the range of products go hand in hand,” says Saskia Egas Reparaz, Etos Brand President.

This acquisition is the latest example of how Ahold Delhaize’s local brands are supporting customers in making healthier choices.

The AIR Lab Delft is officially up and running and teams have started working towards developing the first prototypes and solutions in all the lab’s lines of research. This week’s event brought together the lab’s scientists in robotics and AI, operational employees, students and sponsors to celebrate the progress they’ve made.

The three-day event kicked off with a keynote presentation by AI and Robotics expert Pieter Abbeel, Director of the Berkeley Robot Learning Lab and Co-Director of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Lab. His presentation, “Deep Learning to Learn,” focused on research about the difference between how robots and humans learn by imitation, and how scientists are working to enable robots to acquire new skills more quickly.

The AIR Lab’s store group invited employees on Wednesday to enjoy a program of events aimed at building enthusiasm about technology among young people. Participants received a tour of the AIR lab, along with the Botanical Gardens and Science Center.

On the third and last day, a morning meet-up was held to introduce new members who started working on projects in September and explain the AIR Lab Delft’s ambitious goals. The researchers were able to give short pitches for their projects.

Associates in the stores, distribution centers and the head office can request a free company bicycle if at least 60% of their commuter traffic is done by bicycle – a conventional bicycle for commutes under 10 kilometers and electric for longer trips. They also receive the accessories that help them move safely and protected on public roads (fluorescent jacket, rain vest, pump, etc.).  

Delhaize wants to be CO2 neutral by 2021; since more people on bicycles means fewer cars on the road and less CO2 emissions, this initiative, which started as a pilot project in 2012, contributes to their goal. Exercise is also part of a healthier lifestyle, with studies showing the stress level of bicycling commuters is much lower. 

The concept of company bicycles is part of Delhaize’s integrated approach aimed at creating the greatest possible impact, both through associate and company activities. Delhaize also supports carpooling and is constantly looking to make transport more efficient and sustainable. For example, Delhaize uses double-deck trailers, low-noise night journeys, transport by train and water, and tests, among other things, delivery to its Brussels city shops by bicycle.