Delhaize opens 30 million euro wine bottling plant

Belgian supermarket chain Delhaize has opened the largest wine bottling plant in the Benelux. The supermarket chain does not only bottle wine there for its own stores, but also for other Ahold Delhaize chains.

For all of Ahold Delhaize

Delhaize has officially opened the doors of a new wine bottling plant. At 9,500 sqm, the brand-new complex near Brussels is the largest wine bottling plant in the Benelux region and represents an investment of thirty million euros. It is not only an investment for Delhaize, but also for parent company Ahold Delhaize, as its other chains – such as Albert Heijn and liquor store Gall & Gall will also use the facility.

As early as 1880, Delhaize had its own wine bottling plant in Brussels. That tradition is now continuing in a new building, where some fourteen Olympic pools of wine can be bottled each year and three million litres of wine can be stored. The wine arrives in tanks or via containers, which are stored in large vats in the wine cellar until they are ready to be bottled.

Half of all bottles of wine

“Before they end up in the bottle or box and head towards the store, the wine goes through a number of processes such as filtering to remove the last suspended particles from the wine. The filtration and preservation processes are still carried out in the traditional way even in the new bottling plant”, Delhaize explained the operation to Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.

Half of the bottles sold at Delhaize come from its own bottling plant. Importing wine in bulk rather than in bottles halves the transport cost and the ecological footprint of the wine. The building also has sustainable systems such as water and heat recovery for cleaning and heating. 18,000 bottles per hour are bottled on four bottling lines. The complex employs 73 people.