Global Commitment 2021 Signatory Report

Ahold Delhaize is one of the world’s largest food retail groups, a leader in supermarkets and e-commerce, and a company at the forefront of sustainable retailing. Our family of great local brands serves more than 54 million shoppers each week in the United States, Europe and Indonesia.

America: Northern America

Asia: South-eastern Asia

Europe: Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe

- Ahold Delhaize USA brands started to replace EPS trays with fiber trays for commodity eggs with plans to replace all private brand eggs trays.

- Albert Heijn switched the plastic packaging in 4 SKUs of vegetables snacks from bucket to tray with a plastic film. This change, resulted in 213 tonnes less plastic.

- Alfa Beta reduced the amount of plastic packaging by changing the packaging of baking soda packaging from plastic to glass. This resulted in 5 tonnes less plastic.

- Delhaize Belgium stopped offering plastic bags at checkout and offers paper bags made from 100% recycled and recyclable material. This resulted in 300 less tonnes of plastic every year.

- When COVID crisis started, the new safety measures imposed that all bake-off packaging should have a transparent window, but Mega Image did not return to the plastic window as most of local retailers, but implemented a paper window.

- Ahold Delhaize USA brands will switch the commodity chicken trays from EPS to PET tray eliminating more than 900 metric tonnes of problematic EPS.

- Albert will do some tests to assess the feasibility of installing dry misting technology in our stores in Czech Republic.

- Albert Heijn will become 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. From now on, customers will be able to use sustainable produce bags that are washable and can be re-used dozens of times. The supermarket is also introducing a new line of ten more sustainable shopping bags.

- Delhaize Belgium will remove the plastic lid on all Delhaize brand dairy products. This means 23 tons of plastic less per year or about 7 million lids.

Recent or in-progress pilots of reuse models for new products or packaging

- After a successful test, Delhaize Belgium will install a new Ecover refill station in a second store. Thanks to this refill mode, customers can refill Ecover products (detergent, dishwashing liquid and fabric softener) in their original Ecover bottle, in the store. This way, consumers can actively reduce their plastic footprint. This innovation motivates Delhaize and its customers to work together towards a more sustainable planet with the aim of using up to 9,000 kilos of plastic less per year.

- Delhaize Belgium has installed water fountains in two of its stores allowing consumers to refill bottles (in PET or glass) while shopping. This project will allow the elimination of 1.2 tonnes of plastic per year per store.

Piloting reuse models for new products or packaging: 5 pilots

- During National Waste Care Day 2021 in Indonesia, Super Indo will launch its newest environmentally friendly product, "Fresh Bags 365,” that provides an alternative to disposable produce bags when customers shop for fresh products such as vegetables, fruit and eggs.

- After a successful pilot, Albert Heijn offers its customers the option to purchase freshly squeezed orange juice in reusable bottles which they buy once and then receive a discount every time they refill the same bottle.

- Albert Heijn started using mono-material PET for the chicken, meat and fish trays (already using mono-material for meat trays) and replaced all coloured PET trays with transparent trays. In addition, In 2020, the blue mushroom tray was replaced with a transparent tray that is technically recyclable. On top of that, the tray is made from 100% recycled PET.

- Delhaize Belgium the plastic bottle of sauces fully recyclable by removing the plastic cover around it. As a result, the packaging of the entire range of squeeze bottle sauces is fully recyclable. In addition, the packaging of fresh pasta meals changed from black plastic to a transparent, thinner and recyclable packaging that results in 8.5 tonnes less plastic per year.

-Ahold Delhaize USA brands, many of the private brand items that have shrink film components use the How2Recycle label which educates and encourages customers to bring those items back to the stores for recycling.

- Albert Heijn conducted a research project regarding the feasibility and future of PET tray recycling in the Netherlands in close collaboration with Packaging Waste Fund Foundation.

- In Belgium, Delhaize is collaborating with Fost Plus to increase recycling rates and remove any material or component that hinders the recyclability of packaging.

Yes

100% reusable, recyclable or compostable

- In 2021 Albert Heijn will phase out polystyrene from own brand packaging since this plastic type of plastic is not recycled in the Netherlands. - Our brands in US will switch the commodity chicken trays from EPS to PET tray eliminating more than 900 metric tonnes of problematic EPS - Starting 19th of May 2021, Super Indo in collaboration with Frisian Flag Indonesia runs a Recycle Station pilot project (packaging waste dropbox) at 5 stores in Jakarta, Depok, and Bogor area. Customers are invited to support this project by bringing back the Frisian Flag products packaging or 365 Super Indo mineral water bottle packaging. From this activities, customers will get special merchandise to support their green lifestyle habit.

- Ahold Delhaize USA brands are participants in the Beyond the Bag initiative, a multi-year collaboration across retail sectors that aims to identify, test and implement innovative new design solutions that serve the function of today’s single-use plastic retail bag.

- Albert Heijn and Delhaize Belgium have collaborated to redesign the plastic pot used for hummus and other snacks. Working with NFR (Not for Resale) Sourcing, they found they could use the same size pot, save costs and still maintain sustainability goals. The new plastic pots are recyclable and have increased the percentage of recycled PET to 80%.

- Albert Heijn used an average of 53% recycled PET for all PET bottles and trays in 2020.

- Delhaize switched the packaging of our fresh herbs to a pot that is 100% recylable and made from 100% recycled material. On top of that, the plastic foil has been replaced with a paper one. This chage resulted in 65 tonnes less plastic packaging per year.

- Mega Image is using 30% post-consumer recycled PET in its fresh juice plastic bottles since February 2020.

- Ahold Delhaize USA brands will be increasing the use of post-consumer recycled content by including this as a preference in projects.

- Alfa Beta currently has 91 Recycling Centers outside of its stores, where customers can recycle up to 6 materials. In 2020, €1.5 million was spent on the installation of new centers and the maintenance of older ones. A total of 5 new centers were placed in 2020 in Alfa Beta stores, and many of the old ones received a form of maintenance.

- Many of Ahold Delhaize brands have invested in systems for packaging data collection as well as in surveys for suppliers and recyclers.

PwC and its member firms and affiliates to Ahold Delhaize, is the third-party organisation that audits with limited assurance Ahold Delhaize’s annual report. Ahold Delhaize is planning to begin auditing plastic packaging data for the 2021 year and will include that in its 2021 Annual Report.

Our reported data cover primary packaging made of plastic. This is the plastic packaging that ends up with the consumer.

So far, we have calculated the tonnes of own-brand product plastic packaging and the percentage that is recyclable, reusable and/or compostable for approximately 60% of our total business. For the remaining 40%, we will continue to collect information with the goal to share quantitative progress on plastics in our 2021 annual report. This data collection effort is complex, as many products have packaging made from multiple materials.