Albert Heijn
Supermarket concern Ahold Delhaize, parent of Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn, is stepping up the fight against food waste. Where the company previously aimed to reduce its food waste by 20 percent in 2020, it now increased its target to 50 percent less wasted food by 2030, the Telegraaf reports.
Ahold Delhaize joined a global initiative by retail chains to tackle food waste, launched at the United Nations climate summit in New York this week.
More and more Dutch are buying their groceries and tools for home projects online. Web stores like Albert Heijn, Jumbo and Picnic are seeing their turnover grow with double digits every year, and DIY stores are also showing impressive growth, according to the Twinkle 100, a ranking of the 100 most popular online sellers based on turnover, NOS reports.
Albert Heijn was awarded the Liar, Liar Award for 2019 by animal rights group Wakker Dier. According to the organization, the packaging of Albert Heijn's chicken states that the animals have "more space", but in reality 16 chickens live per square meter, without daylight.
On Thursday Albert Heijn is launching an experiment with a store with no cash registers. The store's door opens when you scan your debit card, and checkout is automatic when you leave - with no need to register for the service, scan products or download an app, NOS reports.
The Dutch supermarket chain is the first in Europe to test such a system in practice. The experiment will happen at the AH head office in Zaandam, only with Albert Heijn employees. Later this year, the small experimental store will move to another location where regular customers can test it.
Albert Heijn is testing its first delivery robot on the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven from Monday. Students and staff can order products from the Albert Heijn To Go on campus through an app, after which the robot will deliver it. This first experiment will last until next week Friday, RTL Nieuws reports.
The delivery robot is not completely automated - Albert Heijn employees have to load the ordered items in the robot manually, and the recipient has to take them out. But the robot will find the delivery location by itself.
Albert Heijn supermarkets are again experiencing major payment problems on Tuesday morning. A technical issue with the regular cash registers means that customers can currently only pay for their groceries via the self-scanner, a spokesperson said to NOS.
Only about half of the Albert Heijn branches in the Netherlands are equipped with self-scanners. Payments are currently impossible at the other branches, according to the broadcaster.
A malfunction with the payment terminals at Ahold stores has been resolved, the company reported on Tuesday morning. The malfunction left customers of Albert Heijn, Etos, and Gall & Gall unable to pay with their debit cards on Monday afternoon, ANP reports.
Supermarket chain Albert Heijn plans to step up its fight against food waste with a new system called "dynamic discounts". This involves an electronic price tag that gives customers a bigger and bigger discount the closer a product comes to its sell-by date, NOS reports.
Over the past year, Albert Heijn threw away 1 percent of unsold products because they exceeded their expiry date. That amounts to 63 million kilograms of wasted food. The supermarket chain hopes that the dynamic discounts system can help reduce this.
Good news for Dutch meat lovers who also want to make a more environmentally-friendly choice with their meals. The plant-based Beyond Burger is now available at over 700 Albert Heijn stores in the Netherlands.
Supermarket chain Albert Heijn will start offering hot meal delivery from Friday - the first Dutch supermarket to do so. Initially Albert Heijn will only deliver freshly made meals in a certain area in Amsterdam. Deliveries will be handled by Thuisbezorgd.nl and Deliveroo, NU.nl reports.
"We see an increasing demand among our customers for good meals, like you would make yourself, without having to go into the kitchen", said Marit van Egmond, Albert Heijn's director of commerce. The company described this as the next step in food service.
Grocery store chain Albert Heijn is converting two AH To Go minimarts into totally cashless locations. The staffed cash registers at the two AMC hospital shops will disappear from Monday.
While more traditional payment methods will remain at the AH To Go stores for the time being, they are introducing an innovation to the public that allows customers to tap their phones against the products. The charges will take about ten minutes to be processed. So far, Albert Heijn is only supporting Android phones, but plans to expand this to iOS and Windows.
A 23-year-old woman was arrested at an Albert Heijn store in Eindhoven on Sunday morning. She is suspected of stabbing a colleague in the leg at the store, De Stentor reports.
The woman was arrested around 9:10 a.m. at the AH XL. She stabbed her 44-year-old colleague earlier in the morning. The victim was taken to hospital.
Why the woman attacked her colleague is not yet clear. The police are investigating.
Animal welfare organization Wakker Dier announced the five nominees for its "liar liar" award for 2018 - an annual online election the organization holds to draw attention to companies deceptions about animal welfare. This year's nominees are Jumbo, Campina, Rabobank, ECOstyle and last year's winner Albert Heijn.
Lidl Nederland will be the first supermarket to stop selling cigarettes. The chain announced that it will phase out sales until no more cigarettes are sold in Lidl Nederland stores by 2022 at the latest, ANP reports.
According to the supermarket chain, the sales figures for cigarettes declined over the past years and cigarette sales are no longer profitable. But Lidl also took measures to discourage the sale of smoking products, like placing all cigarettes out of sight in stores last year.
Albert Heijn wants to stop using plastic bags in its fruit and vegetable departments. The Dutch supermarket chain will start experimenting with alternatives in 10 stores this summer, a spokesperson for Albert Heijn said to RTL Nieuws.
"Reducing plastic has had our attention for some time", the spokesperson said. "The so-called loop bags at the cash register have become thinner and smaller, so we save about 10 percent of plastic, and containers with soft fruit now have plastic foil as a lid instead of a hard plastic lid."
Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn pulled a boys' football party game off its shelves after accusations that the party game is sexist and stereotypical, AD reports.
The game pack contains whistles, inflatable footballs and a set of questions with multiple answers. The most obvious criticism of the game is that its packaging states its for boys aged 8 to 13 years old. "Why not for girls?" a football coach asked the newspaper.
Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn is facing criticism about client profiles that new employees have to learn. The profiles include a black woman with a child to represent clients who buy cheaper products, and a white man as a "Premium client". The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights and a number of anti-discrimination organizations call the profiles stigmatizing and stereotypical, NOS reports.
Consumers association Consumentenbond is very critical about the freshness of shrimp sold in Dutch supermarkets Albert Heijn, Jumbo and Lidl. Jumbo's shrimp also contains more preservatives than is permitted by Dutch law, according to the association, NU.nl reports.
An attempted supermarket robbery at Albert Heijn on Hildo Kroplaan in The Hague was foiled on Wednesday evening when 38-year-old Melissa Frieser chased the robber off, Omroep West reports.
Thirteen supermarket chains affiliated with Superunie quietly recalled waffles and cookies from their shelves on Wednesday because they contain toxic insecticide fipronil, AD reported on Thursday. "We expect more such silent recalls", Wilco Jansen of Emté said to the newspaper. "There are many products with a lot of egg in them. No idea where this is going to end."
Albert Heijn re-implemented measures in the sale of baby formula as the demand is increasing again. According to the supermarket, traders across the country are buying up Nutrilon 1 to 5 and shipping the formula to China, NOS reports.
Albert Heijn branches are therefore limiting the purchase of formula to two cans per customer. Baby formula can also only be bought at the service desk - there is a note on the shelves telling customers to go to the desk for baby formula. The supermarket chain hopes that this will ensure that the product is always available to Dutch customers.
Special gluten-free products are not always a healthier alternative to regular products, consumers association Consumentenbond reports. A study done by the association revealed that gluten-free products often contain more fat, sugar and/or salt and less fiber than similar products with gluten, ANP reports.
The association compared the ingredient lists of five gluten-free A-brand products to similar products containing gluten. The results told a scary tale.
German supermarket chain Aldi is removing all eggs from the shelves across the country because of fipronil found in eggs from some Dutch poultry farms, the supermarket chain announced on Friday. According to Aldi, this is a "precautionary measure", ANP reports.
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