Ozva AdminRetail media, healthcare, financial services and food service represent exciting new revenue streams for supermarket chains. Ahold Delhaize see opportunities and challenges.
Loyalty card details
Following the release of its quarterly results, Ahold Delhaize’s top management took time for an informal discussion with the Benelux trade press. Jorg Snoeck from RetailDetail also participated and heard that one of the topics was new potential sources of income. For retail media, the retailer has set itself a revenue target of one billion euros.
“We are well on our way to achieving this,” says CEO Frans Muller. “We have taken a stake in a Belgian company called Adhese, to strengthen our skills. 70% of our data comes from our loyalty cards. This data is used anonymously and in aggregate, in compliance with all laws and regulations, but we can analyze it together with the manufacturers to come to better conclusions and better proposals for customers.”
The media landscape is changing
In the Netherlands, alberto heijn It is already quite advanced in this regard, the general director of the chain, Marit van Egmond, adds: “We have had our Albert Heijn Media Services for a long time. That is taking off, but you also have to have the technology. That’s why I’m very happy with the minority stake we’ve acquired in Adhese. I’m looking forward to seeing what this will produce as we make it even more professional. Not only with Albert Heijn, but also with ethos Y bol.com.”
“You see the media landscape is changing, advertisers are looking for other channels,” adds Europe CEO Wouter Kolk. “They look at ROI very critically. With us, you have great reach and you can also immediately see what the overall click behavior and purchase behavior is. That is why that proposition is useful. Customers get much more relevant offers, instead of the same ads for everyone. There is interest from advertisers that we don’t have, but who show interest in our reach, things like car brands or banks… There are opportunities there”.
nutrition and prevention
Health care is another focus for retail. “walmart it has already built twenty Health Centers in the United States, where minor procedures can be performed. That’s pretty impressive. We already do vaccines, they really go a step further. But health itself, of course, is very close to us: if you can talk to people about nutrition, about fighting obesity and diabetes and better nutrition, we’re doing it every day. It’s the cheapest preventative way to get people to live healthier lives,” Muller said.
Van Egmond agrees: “I think it’s important if Albert Heijn can help customers lead a healthy lifestyle. We do it with our offer of healthy and fresh products. Look how many packs of soft drinks we sell: now we have more than seventy, and they help everyone to cook healthy. At the other end of the spectrum, we have our lifestyle platform, the My Lifestyle Coach app, which helps customers eat healthy but also exercise, sleep and relax. On average, we already have 200,000 people a week participating in the challenges.”
grilled chicken and sushi
What about food service at the supermarket? “We see that growing as well,” van Egmond says. She refers to a recently renovated Albert Heijn supermarket in Amsterdam: “I think we put a nice new range in there. Of course, we already had sushi, our Bakery Café and our own kitchen, but there are still many opportunities to add new ranges. Sometimes it’s half done in the shop, sometimes finished in the shop, there are many different ways to do it. However, they are all fresh products of the day”.
“Our brands have food service in the US,” adds Muller. “That’s been booming in the last three years, from rotisserie chicken to whole foods to salad bars and so on. But it is not so easy to operate. It has high margins, but also high labor costs, because it is specialized labor, not comparable to filling a shelf. It is not so easy to make money on it, but customers respond very positively to this, it is a good addition to the existing range. Sometimes we do it ourselves, sometimes we work with dealers, for example for sushi.”
Finally, with financial services, Ahold Delhaize hasn’t done much yet. “But we are always looking for opportunities. There are a number of European retailers doing it: Tesco, Sainsbury’s… There is potential over time.”
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