Ahold Delhaize is joining Eurelec, the retail purchasing alliance created in 2016 by German Rewe Group and French market leader E. Leclerc. Together, the three would represent a net turnover of approximately €155 billion. With the extra strength of Ahold, the association wants to achieve fair and realistic consumer prices by cross-border purchasing. Eurelec buys, amongst others, groceries, frozen food, beverages, cleaning products and cosmetics for its members and it is the one central point of contact for the large international manufacturers.

Ahold Delhaize is also a member of international alliance AMS, which buys private labels for its members. Ahold, Rewe and Leclerc are also member of Coopernic, which negotiates commercial conditions for its members.

Last month, MEPs of the Environmental Committee adopted proposals to make packaging easier to reuse and recycle, to reduce unnecessary packaging and waste and to promote the use of recycled content in packaging. The so-called PPWR, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, is part of the EU’s Green Deal. The Commission launched the proposal for the PPWR last year.

The introduction of the regulation would have a huge impact on packaging and the packaging industry. Packaging analysts from Rabobank foresee that packaging producers will need to revise their product portfolios and sourcing processes to ensure they are able to comply with the requirements. They expect some substitution between packaging materials. Investment in infrastructure for waste collection and recycling, as well as for the implementation of new systems like DRS, will be needed to match the target set. Finally, it is thought that market harmonization will be essential for the regulation’s success.

Consumer associations are sounding the alarm bell for what they see as increasing skimpflation. This means manufacturers that reformulate recipes or change ingredients in order to save costs. The organizations say they see, for example,  frozen vegetables containing a smaller percentage of the vegetable than before and more water instead, or margarine with a smaller percentage of fat and more water in the package. There are manufacturers that reduce the amount of olive oil in spreads and sauces, others reduce the percentage of alcohol in wine. Some of the changes are small but they all involve the reduction of key, and expensive, ingredients.

In many cases there is no information on packaging to indicate anything has changed. Foodwatch, a European-wide watchdog in the food sector, calls for more transparency from food manufacturers when they change the recipe or size of their products. Earlier, manufacturers were accused of shrinkflation, ‘quietly’ downsizing the content in the packaging while keeping the price the same or even increasing the price.

Aldi is targetting hundreds of new stores in Europe. In its new three-year plan, it aims for over 6,000 stores in Europe by 2026. That means about 700 more stores than it operates now. The plan comes with investments in the amount of billions of Euros. It should push the growth of the discounter.

In recent years, the company has restructured its organization, expanded, and modernized logistics. For a smoother flow of goods, more precise forecasts, and lower markdowns, it invested in warehouses, hubs, and IT. The greatest potential for expansion is seen in Poland, France, and Spain.

Aldi is also finetuning its private label lines. While it carried 300 different private label brand names, it is bringing the number of names back to about 60. The company says that in the months to come, customers will be seeing visible changes in the stores. Own brands will be merged and relaunched under new names and others will simply be modernised. The number of private label SKUs will remain the same, but there will be fewer and stronger own brand names. The aim is to increase recognisability. The project should be finalised in 2024.

The EU is investigating the possible stopping of goods entering the Union if they were produced using "forced labour." A system would be set up in which a list of high-risk areas and sectors would be created.

When a company wants to import goods from the list, or produced in areas from the list, the burden to proof that no forced labour was used would fall on the company, not on the authorities.

If forced labour was used, all import and export of the related goods would be halted at the EU borders and companies would also have to withdraw goods that have already reached the EU market. These would then be donated, recycled, or destroyed.