Plastic Waste
Across the globe, millions of tonnes of plastic end up in landfills, burned or leaked into the environment – and that amount is rising every year. Our brands continue to improve their own-brand product packaging by switching to more environmentally friendly materials or reusable packaging, eliminating unnecessary plastic packaging and increasing the use of post-consumer recycled content. We follow a clear framework focused on moving towards a more circular system by reducing, reusing and recycling the packaging materials we use.
Our brands have a number of initiatives in place that help us reduce plastic use. In 2021, in the U.S., The GIANT Company, Hannaford and Stop & Shop stores serviced from a distribution center in Freetown, Massachusetts, transitioned their own-brand commodity fresh chicken program from EPS foam trays to more easily recyclable PET rigid trays, diverting an estimated 450 metric tons of foam from the waste stream annually. Food Lion and Giant Food are scheduled to transition their commodity chicken program away from foam trays in 2022. The GIANT Company, Giant Food, Hannaford and Stop & Shop also transitioned their Nature’s Promise organic fresh chicken program from EPS foam trays to PET rigid trays, diverting an estimated 15 metric tons of foam from the waste stream.
In Europe, Albert became the first retailer in the Czech Republic to offer refillable containers. Customers can choose from more than eighty dry food and drugstore items that can be taken home in refillable containers instead of disposable packaging. Recently, Albert Heijn launched a new concept in three of its stores, where customers can also do a large part of their daily shopping by filling reusable bags or jars. The new concept consists of a packaging-free range of 70 dry ingredients products in smart dispensers. In 2022, another fifty stores will roll out this concept.
Our brands are also reducing single-use plastics used for carrier bags. In 2021, Albert Heijn was the first large supermarket in the Netherlands to announce it would stop using plastic bags for fruit and vegetables, and offer reusable alternatives to its customers. Since May 2022, all fruit and vegetable departments across Albert Heijn have stopped offering free plastic bags. This initiative saves 130 million bags – or 243,000 kilos of plastic – per year.
We pledged to eradicate plastic waste and pollution at the source through the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment (“The Global Commitment”) in 2018. The Global Commitment has united more than 500 organizations behind a common vision of a circular economy for plastics. Driven by the goal of tackling plastic pollution at its source, companies representing 20% of all plastic packaging produced globally have committed to ambitious 2025 targets to help realize this vision. The Global Commitment is led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme. Through the Global Commitment, businesses and governments commit to changing how we produce, use and reuse plastic. The organizations are working to eliminate the plastic items we do not need; innovate so all plastic we do need is designed to be safely reused, recycled or composted; and circulate everything we use to keep it in the economy and out of the environment.
In addition, we work with several organizations to find and create solutions for sustainable packaging. For example, we collaborated with the Packaging Waste Fund Foundation to research the viability of PET tray recycling at Albert Heijn. We also worked together with Fost Plus in Belgium to look at ways of increasing recycling rates and removing plastics that disrupt recycling. In addition, some of our brands are members of national plastic pacts that are implementing solutions towards a circular economy for plastic. For example, Albert Heijn is a member of the Dutch Plastics pact, while Ahold Delhaize USA is a member of the U.S. Plastics Pact. Moreover, Ahold Delhaize USA is a member of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, a membership-based collaborative that believes in the power of industry to make packaging more sustainable.
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Giant Food launches Loop
Local shoppers can now purchase a selection of products in reusable packaging thanks to a new partnership between Giant Food and Loop.
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Package-free shopping at Albert Heijn
The package-free range consists of seventy products, from breakfast cereals and spreads to ingredients for dinner such as pasta and rice.
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Recycled content in packaging at Alfa Beta
Alfa Beta recently launched a new exclusive detergent and home cleaning brand, “OceaniQ,” packaged in bottles made 100% from recycled abandoned fishing nets collected from the oceans.
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New recycling center at Albert
Albert has invested in a new recycling center. As part of its sustainability program, Albert has been recycling packaging materials for many years now, giving them new life as secondary raw materials. The brand fills over 200 trucks with pressed paper and PE foils per year.
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Reusable bags at Hannaford
The Hannaford Helps Reusable Bag Program reached a major milestone in January 2021 when it surpassed two million bags sold since its inception in 2014, resulting in more than $1.3 million raised for non-profit organizations across the northeastern United States.
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Reusable fruit and vegetable bags at Albert Heijn
Albert Heijn is the first large supermarket in the Netherlands to stop using plastic bags for fruits and vegetables. This move will save 130 million bags, the equivalent of 243,000 kilos of plastic per year.
We measure performance on three targets:
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- 100% of own-brand primary plastic packaging that will be reusable, recyclable, or compostable
- 25% of our total own brand primary plastic packaging weight will be made from post-consumer recycled content by 2025
- By 2025, our brands aim to reduce the use of virgin plastic in their own-brand primary product packaging by 5% compared to 2021
Performance indicator description |
2021 |
2025 target |
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Own-brand primary plastic product packaging (thousand tonnes) |
158 |
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% own-brand primary plastic product packaging that is reusable, recyclable, or compostable |
36% |
100% |
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% post-consumer recycled content in own-brand primary plastic product packaging¹ |
10% |
25% |
¹Our % of post-consumer recycled content in own-brand primary plastic product packaging improved to what was previously communicated, because of better data availability.