Ahold Delhaize increases commitment to slash food waste in half by 2030

Ahold Delhaize joins “10x20x30” initiative launched today in New York

Zaandam, the Netherlands, September 25, 2019 – Ahold Delhaize today announced it will extend its commitment to cut food waste in its brands’ operations. The reduction is in line with the global goal of reducing food waste by 50% by 2030. It will also initiate partnerships with its suppliers to further reduce food waste. This new target further builds on our 2016 commitment to reduce food waste by 20% by 2020.

Supporting this commitment, Ahold Delhaize has joined the World Resources Institute’s ‘10x20x30’ initiative, which brings together 10 global food retailers that will each engage with 20 of their priority suppliers to halve their rates of food loss and waste by 2030. Ahold Delhaize is a founding partner of the initiative, which was launched today during Climate Week in New York. With this commitment Ahold Delhaize fully supports the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 12.3.

“Reducing food waste in our stores and distribution chain is the right thing for our business, for the climate, and for improving food security. We join this exciting initiative to support momentum across our industry and create new innovations for reducing waste in partnership with suppliers,” said Frans Muller, President and CEO of Ahold Delhaize.

Food waste reduction is a key component of our Leading Together strategy as we work toward a healthy and sustainable future. Ahold Delhaize brands across the U.S. and Europe have implemented many changes in the past years to reduce food waste in our operations, such as improving technology for store ordering and developing partnerships with local communities to donate unsold food to people in need. With this new target, we commit to accelerating partnerships and innovations - in areas such as packaging, discounting, fresh quality analysis, and smarter logistics.

“Wasting less food is critical to conserving natural resources and improving food security,” said Megan Hellstedt, VP Sustainable Retailing. “We have identified improvements to make in our own operations for the coming years and will ask our key suppliers to do the same.”

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