European Parliament adopted a bill to regulate the organic industry: things will be stricter, but also fairer and clearer. An organic label and importation legislation should help promote Europe’s local organic manufacturing companies.
Even though the European beer market continues to struggle, Dutch brewery groups Heineken and Bavaria have published growing turnovers. Bavaria set a record turnover, Heineken raised its turnover 4.3 % in the past quarter.
Unilever has seen its first quarter turnover drop more than 5 % because of negative exchange rate fluctuations. Excluding that impact, the food and care product manufacturer’s turnover would have grown 3.4 %.
Colruyt, Edeka and Intermarché are approaching a deal in their price dispute with Nestlé. The Swiss food manufacturer will make concessions in a new proposal as the retailers’ supplies are dwindling.
The French e-commerce market has seemingly opened up a new area of competition: Carrefour and E.Leclerc have both opened so-called “drives piéton”, pick-up locations for pedestrians in urban centers.
A study reports that meat prices are 50 % higher than what consumers now pay for it, if we take into account the damage to the climate, animals and bio diversity.
Picnic Germany is highly ambitious: the Dutch online supermarket targets profit in North Rhine Westphalia within six months. Picnic is also expanding its delivery service in the Netherlands, to Noord Brabant.
French supermarket chain group E. Leclerc and Coca-Cola are not seeing eye to eye at the moment: the discounter refuses to accept Coca-Cola’s price increases for 2018, which has left several stores without the American drinks for several weeks.
The European Commission will tackle unfair trading practices in an attempt to give farmers and SMEs more assurances, but trade federation EuroCommerce is unconvinced: “the farmer will not earn a penny more because of this.”
Beer giant AB InBev has introduced a new technique to become more environmentally friendly when brewing beer, which should lower its carbon emissions worldwide by 5 %. It will also share that technology with smaller breweries in the future.
Within a year of CEO Alexandre Bompard’s arrival, Carrefour’s board is getting a major shake-up. Remarkable is that three of the four new independent directors have a lot of digital experience, which is no coincidence.
Carrefour has struggled in its first quarter, partially because of strikes. Belgian turnover also slumped, but the company will go ahead with its announced transformation plan.
British retailer Tesco has published strong annual results and has also strengthened its leadership position in its home territory. Wholesaler Booker’s acquisition has also opened new doors.
Online sales are increasingly popular, something that is also the case at Delhaize. The company delivers more orders at home and that is why it will expand the delivery hours for its “home delivery service”. The supermarket chain will open several smaller redistribution centers or hubs to facilitate this.
Nestlé is the latest food company to announce its intent to reduce plastic waste by making its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025. Greenpeace is skeptical and would rather see the food giant completely renounce single-use plastic packaging.
Barry Callebaut introduced its pink chocolate in Japan early this year and has now launched it in Europe. Nestlé will be the first, with a pink KitKat bar, next week. The fourth type of chocolate is smooth and has a fruity berry flavour.
German retail group Rewe achieved a 57.8 billion euro turnover in 2017, which represents a 6.7 % increase. That was an above-average growth, mainly thanks to its own Rewe supermarkets.
Takeaway.com, which owns Thuisbezorgd.nl and former Pizza.be, processed another 30 % increase in orders during 2018’s first quarter. It also achieved strong growth in the highly competitive German market.
