Product safety

By 2050, the global population is expected to reach almost ten billion people. How can we feed everyone and guarantee high levels of food safety and nutrition, without depleting our natural resources? It is a challenge that must be addressed at all stages of the supply chain.

What we are doing

Our suppliers are spread all over the world and have different challenges when it comes to food safety, social compliance and sustainability. We take responsibility to maintain a high level of safety for our products, while also improving their environmental and social footprints.

Product safety is a material topic for Ahold Delhaize and this topic is managed by the Director Global Product Safety, within our Global Compliance & Ethics function reporting up to the Chief Legal Officer. While the main focus is on our own-brand products, all products that we sell are covered by our product safety approach. We work to ensure they are legal, safe, produced in facilities that are fit for purpose and under and clearly and accurately labeled. Products are tested by routine to confirm compliance with specifications and safety. Specific attention for food fraud is part of the approach.

A major focus for handling products in a way that keeps them safe to use is on our own operations, from receiving the products at the DCs until the final outlet in the store or the last mile for on-line delivery. We train our employees working in stores and in distribution centers on a regular basis to contribute to an internal culture of food safety. Our local brands have regular product safety audits in place for stores, DCs and transport.

In case that a product is found to be materially unsafe to consume or use, we take corrective action and it is immediately removed from the stores and recalled from the market. This process can be performed in a very short time and is trained as a part of the food safety management system of the Ahold Delhaize brand.

Our partnerships

To drive global product safety and social and environmental sustainability, we take an active role in various standards committees and working groups. We are active member of the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) Coalition of Action of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), currently our CEO is co-chair of the CGF.

How we measure performance

The journey to food safety compliance is complex. Nevertheless, for 2025, we strive to achieve the following targets and regularly monitor our performance on:

• Food safety compliance: 100% of the production sites of own-brand food products certified according to an approved standard, or comply with an acceptable level of assurance standard.
• High risk non-food products are required to be produced at a certified production unit or appropriately tested.

In our Annual Report we report on our progress on product safety.