Ahold Delhaize USA Commits to Nutritional Goals

Ahold Delhaize, which has made “Eating Well” a tenet of the company’s purpose supporting its business strategy, has announced its U.S. brands would publicly disclose the percentage of food sales from healthier options in a move described as the largest pledge to increase healthier food sales and transparency from a U.S. grocery retailer.

The announcement comes as part of an agreement with the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), the nonprofit working to transform the food landscape in pursuit of health equity. All of Ahold Delhaize’s local U.S. brands—Food Lion, Giant Food, The Giant Co., Hannaford and Stop & Shop—are participating.

“With this commitment, Ahold Delhaize USA has raised the bar for grocery retailers. This is a win for consumers, through increased sales of healthier foods, and a win for public health through greater transparency of healthier sales data,” said Nancy Roman, president and CEO, Partnership for a Healthier America. “When companies are committed to not only stocking healthier options, but also encouraging sales of those items, real change can happen.”

Through this commitment, Ahold Delhaize USA has made the following goals:

“Providing customers with affordable, nutritious food every day and leveraging our collective scale to move the needle on important public health issues is integral to our mission to make a local impact with a greater purpose,” said Brittni Furrow, VP of sustainable retailing and healthy living for Ahold Delhaize USA. “We look forward to this new partnership and working collaboratively to create a healthier America.”

Ahold Delhaize USA said its commitment is part of the grocery retail group’s efforts to create a better world by ensuring a healthier, sustainable, transparent food supply chain.

Guiding Stars—originally developed at Hannaford—since 2006 has been the official nutritional guidance program of Ahold Delhaize USA companies. Guiding Stars makes nutrition information to consumers easy by identifying products that meet nutritional benefits with a 1, 2 or 3 star ranking. It analyzes foods using a patented algorithm.

“Guiding Stars is designed to help customers shop for foods with more nutrition,” said Julie Greene, director of Guiding Stars. “By providing the threshold for better nutrition, Guiding Stars enables Ahold Delhaize USA to measure its efforts in this space.”