Food
On Saturday 2 January, more than 500 Colruyt Group stores in Belgium will remain closed. The retailer grants its store employees an extra paid leave day to thank them for their efforts during the corona crisis.
» Read more
Meal kit supplier HelloFresh acquires Factor75, a company specialising in healthy ready meals, in the United States.
Wouter Kolk, European chief executive of Ahold Delhaize, wants to achieve more as a group: Albert Heijn, Delhaize and bol.com need to team up if they wish to remain competitive, according to the CEO.
Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky announced he now owns over forty per cent of the voting rights of Metro. It will allow him to exert even more influence on the direction of the German group.
(update) Danone is reorganising, resulting in 1,500 to 2,000 office employees losing their job. The FMCG company is transforming into a 'local first' organisation, with fewer management layers and greater local autonomy.
In the United States, Ahold Delhaize acquires FreshDirect, an online supermarket in New York City specializing in fresh produce.
Unilever wants to achieve a turnover of at least 1 billion euro within five to seven years with vegetable alternatives to meat and dairy. The multinational expects an explosive growth of the market.
With a deep-frozen alternative to the well-known chilled meal boxes, Ghent-based startup Mealhero wants to conquer more European countries in addition to Belgium and the Netherlands. New investors are injecting 2.5 million euros into the company.
Greenyard continues to grow and is becoming more profitable thanks to the corona crisis. The fruit and vegetable supplier uses the current climate to clear its towering mountain of debt.
Albert Heijn is no longer just a supermarket chain, but a "food technology company". As far as chief executive Marit van Egmond is concerned, digitisation can go even faster: goodbye tills and hello far-reaching personalisation.
Walmart sells Japanese retailer Seiyu to investment company KKR and e-commerce company Rakuten. The company, which is headed by the Belgian Lionel Desclée, has been for sale for some time now.
Cactus, the underdog market leader with 61 supermarkets in Luxembourg, continues to expand. Just like runner-up Delhaize, Cactus redirects its focus on convenience stores, thanks to franchise concept Shoppi.
The end of voice commerce at Albert Heijn: the supermarket chain has discontinued its app for Google Assistant. The test was unsuccessful and will not be continued. However, Belgian competitor Colruyt will continue with the speech technology.
Meat and dairy are past their peak: vegetable alternatives will reach a turnover of 7.5 billion euro on the European market in 2025, ING calculated. Yet meat substitutes will not outperform the meat market yet.
McPlant is the name of a series of meat substitutes that McDonald's is developing. Among other things, the burger chain will make imitations of chicken and meat for breakfast rolls.
FrieslandCampina is cutting nearly a thousand jobs because of the coronavirus crisis. Employees in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany are particularly affected.
