Our products play a big role in healthy living. This year, we’ve responded to increasing obesity and diet-related diseases and growing demand for more nutritious, healthier products in two ways.
Firstly, by changing what we sell - we’ve made great progress reformulating our private brand products to make them healthier, without compromising taste or quality. These represent more than 50% of our revenues in Belgium and more than 26% in the U.S. and are approximately 15% to 20% cheaper than national brand equivalents.
Secondly, through communication – we’ve expanded existing programs and harnessed new technology to make healthier choices easier for our customers. Local execution means our operating companies can adjust their messaging, on products and in general, to meet local cultures and needs.
What are we doing about healthy eating?
Reformulating our private brand products
Reducing negative impacts
In 2010, Delhaize Belgium reviewed 1 916 private brand products, making significant progress on reducing negative impacts. Delhaize America joined the National Salt Reduction Initiative to get best practice support to speed up its activity. In the U.S. and Belgium, we make sure all our private brand products are as good, if not better nutritionally, than national brand equivalents. Our operating companies have made efforts to eliminate trans-fat and reduce other negative impacts from private brand products:
- 99% trans-fat free private brand products at Delhaize America
- 100 private brand products 100% trans-fat free at Alfa Beta
- 100% trans-fat free private brand products at Delhaize Belgium
- Cereals have 90% less sugar and 75% less fat than similar national brands at Delhaize Belgium
Guiding Stars as a tool
In the U.S. we use our Guiding Stars nutritional information system to give an at-a-glance read-out of how each product, both private brand and national brand, scores in terms of nutritional value. Foods with one Guiding Star offer good nutritional value per calorie, two better and three best. Click here to find out more on Guiding Stars.
Engaging Consumers
In 2010, all our companies continued investing in health communications, taking their own approaches. Alfa Beta’s four-year healthy eating campaign based on the Mediterranean diet is a great example. Alfa Beta has been ranked in the Awareness and Social Behavior Index (ASBI) as “number one” in consumer perception against local competitors. See our 2010 insight for other great examples of on and offline engagement.
Providing clear labels
Providing clear information is a key part of promoting healthy eating, because it enables better consumer choices. In the U.S., we use Guiding Stars. In Europe, because of the different legislative environment, we use GDA labels. These labels show the energy and nutrient content of a portion of food or beverage, and how much of an adult’s daily dietary needs this represents. In 2010, we made significant progress toward our goal: 60% of European private brand products have GDA labels, up from 6% in 2008.
What do our stakeholders think about it?
How to engage the disengaged? The biggest challenge for Delhaize Group lies in the area where change is driven primarily by consumer choices – this will require more innovative thinking and new approaches that go beyond labeling.
Ned Groth, expert on food safety, advisor to WHO and FAO, former consumer advocate for Consumers Union (United States)
2010 Insight
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Engaging consumers through food labeling
Read the case study to find out why this is both a challenge and opportunity for us and what we’re doing about it.
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Find Out More
Click here for our data summary and methodology
Click here to see the glossary
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