Albert Heijn to sell day-old bread for very cheap in fight against food waste

Supermarket chain Albert Heijn wants to step up the fight against food waste by selling cheap "yesterday's bread" as standard in all stores. Bread will be sold for an extra low price until 11:00 a.m. the day after it arrived fresh in the store. Half a loaf of bread can be scored for 25 cents, a whole loaf or a bag of buns for 50 cents.

This is already happening at forty stores, but will be expanded nationwide within a few weeks. "Slightly more than 1 percent of the products that we buy do not end up on our customers' plate. That may not seem like much, but in our opinion it is too much. That is not only a waste of the food, but also of the time and energy invested in its production," said Anita Scholte op Reimer, responsible for Quality and Sustainability at Albert Heijn. AH is not the only one to sell "stale" bread for little money, for example Vomar offers half a loaf of yesterday's bread for 50 cents.

AH knows from research by Wageningen University & Research (WUR) that a relatively large amount of bread is wasted. "About half of the wasted bread remains unsold in the supermarkets and the other half of the wastage takes place at the consumers' homes," said the supermarket.

The supermarket already developed several initiatives to promote sustainability, such as reusable bags and 35 percent discount on products with a use-by date coming up soon.

Albert Heijn stores in Capelle aan den IJssel, Groningen, The Hague, Hoofddorp, Hengelo, Assen, Amsterdam, Echt, Tilburg, Heemskerk, and Tiel are now also introducing a reusable Waste-me-not bag, which is filled with riper vegetables and fruits, that can be purchased for one euro. This may be expanded at a later time.