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.

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.