Translations Best practice in French version Best practice in English version

Delhaize Belgium and WWF work hand in hand for sustainable seafood.

6. Clients and consumers

Instruction

Context

Delhaize is a belgium a global grocery retailer founded in 1867 by Jules Delhaize. It is part of the Delhaize Group (24% annual sales in Belgium, 61%in the USA under the brand Food Lion and 15% in southern Europe). The principal activity of Delhaize Group is the operation of food supermarkets. As part of their Sustainability strategy, Delhaize is concerned by the problem of overfishing. Since 2009 and in partnership with WWF (World Wide Fund) Delhaize Belgium proposes a maximum of sustainable products in its local market. Due to current fishing practices, a growing amount of fish stock is being threatened as a result of overfishing, by catch methods or destruction of the marine habitat. For the preservation of biodiversity and the reproduction capability of the oceans, it is of great importance that environmentally compatible and sustainable fishery be supported. The goal of Delhaize is to propose since 2009 a maximum of sustainable sea products in its local market for their own brand.

Objectives

  • Reduce the impact of Delhaize activities on the planet, 
  • Get the  stakeholders involved and educate the staff
  • Contribute to a change of behavior of the consumers through an awareness campaign.

APPROACH

WWF put its expertise in the service of the project and accompanied the change. 

The Foundation of the North Sea made the audit of the supply chain in fish.

The first stage consists in mobilizing the fishermen to modify their practices, rather than to forbid the sale of certain categories of fish. The partners chose to negotiate directly with the fishing sector as to respect a number of criteria intended to avoid the damage of the overfishing: specific fish stocks, fishing methods, impact of fishing on other species, impact of fishing on eco-systems, and fish stocks management.)...

The buyers of the company accompany the fishermen in their practices (visits, advice...). Investments are necessary to adapt to this new project.

Since 2010, an index of the fish has been edited and is updated every year. The fish guide shows the situation for each species in each place and helps categorize the best choice: green (if species are in good health and the impact of the environment is limited), orange (second choice) and red (if there is a severe issue with the fish stocks or impact on the ecosystems due to CO2 emissions or fishing methods). This very simple guide makes the consumers aware of the sustainable fishing and informed clearly and quickly of what he is buying and eating. 

CONTRIBUTION TO COMPANY PERFORMANCE

  • Delhaize has 62 references of fish which are MSC certified
  • Increased Employee Engagement
  • Increased Customer Awareness
  • Delhaize Belgium leader the market of sustaiable seeafood

Benefits

  • 2012: No seafood sold in Delhaize is in the red column 
  • 2013 :100% fresh seafood is from sustainable sourcing and 80% frozen seafood is from sustainable sourcing
  • Delhaize Group (USA and southern Europe) will use this experience
  • Resouces used efficently 
Workforce
15 000 (2013)
Turnover
5 Millions deuros (2013)
Country
Belgium

DELHAIZE

Rue Osseghem, 53
1080 Bruxelles

www.delhaizegroup.com

Mise à jour le 13/11/2017

Creative Commons Attribution This work by Réseau Alliances – World Forum Lille is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.