Recently, Ahold Delhaize published its 2021 Annual Report, providing an overview of the company’s financial and ESG performance in 2021. In the report, the retailer details €75.6 billion ($84 billion) net sales for 2021, nearly a €900 million gain over its 2020 €74.7 billion ($83.1 billion) net sales, equal to almost $1 billion USD.
“I am proud of our performance and what we have been able to achieve in 2021. Despite expectations that the world would return to pre-pandemic life, COVID-19 continued to have a major impact on our brands’ markets—and kept our people very busy,” Frans Muller, Chief Executive Officer, said. “I have enormous appreciation for associates in stores, distribution centers, and support offices across Ahold Delhaize and its brands who worked so incredibly hard to serve the needs of customers and communities.”
As noted in the release, from a business standpoint, Ahold Delhaize went from strength to strength on many fronts during the year. Consumer trends around cooking and eating at home, shopping online, and healthy eating have remained and evolved, and convenience continued to grow in importance.
.png "Despite ongoing global challenges related to the supply chain and COVID-19, Ahold Delhaize reported an almost $1 billion increase in net sales for 2021 (click to enlarge)")
An important milestone for Ahold Delhaize during the year was announcing updates to its long-term strategy “Leading Together” and key medium-term commitments during its Investor Day in November. This growth and investment plan includes a step-up in investments in digital, automation, and state-of-the-art infrastructure to drive innovation and support Ahold Delhaize’s accelerated growth plans to 2025.
Some key highlights from the report include:
Additionally, Ahold Delhaize’s local brands have geared up their online propositions, delivery services, and click and collect locations, bringing unique customer experiences to their markets with new loyalty programs to truly enable customers to shop whenever and wherever they want.
Ahold Delhaize doubled down on its commitment to its climate strategy and brought forward its net-zero carbon emissions target for scope 1 and 2 by 10 years to 2040. Embedded in Ahold Delhaize’s belief that what is healthy for people, is healthy for the planet, another sharpened ambition is the increased target for healthy own-brand food sales to be at least 55 percent by 2025.
To learn more, click here for the Full Annual Report 2021.
Deli Market News will keep an eye on the wire.
