BELGIUM: Five initiatives underlining Delhaize's focused global strategy | Progresiv
As Belgium-based Delhaize looks to drive international growth through focusing on its key markets and formats, we look at five developments that spotlight its increasing emphasis on new concepts and driving online skill and scale. 
1. Trialing new concept in US
As part of its on-going updating of Food Lion stores, Delhaize has renovated three of its largest stores in Apex and Morrisville, adding in new services, such as full-service meat and fresh seafood counters, features, such as a customer seating area, hot wings and salad bars in the deli area, and expanding its range of organic, natural and gluten-free products. In the short term these trials could influence Delhaize’s updating of its stores elsewhere, with its president, Meg Ham, noting that the retailer needs ‘to continue to innovate [and] differentiate itself in the marketplace’.
2. Extending ‘Pick-Up’ solution
In an attempt to make its offer more convenient for shoppers, its Hannaford banner continues to roll out its pick-up solution, adding it at its stores in Maine. Commenting on the expansion, a spokesperson, Eric Blom, said that the retailer was rolling out the ‘to go’ service due to shopper demand as its ‘customers have never been busier [and] we are always looking for ways to make shopping easier for them’.
3. And rolling out innovative mobile coupon
Food Lion is enabling shoppers to save money through the use of Shazam app by providing in-store shoppers with the chance to listen to music through the app, which then takes them to a page providing discounts on a wide range of products. Food Lion collaborated with Mood Media to utilise in-store beacons to ping shopper devices when they open Shazam, which then take them to the Food Lion coupon page.
4. Launching online in Greece
In Greece the retailer launched a ‘click2Shop’ online delivery service, which it has initially made available in the Attica region. Shoppers are able to receive deliveries 12 hours a day, between 08.30 and 20.30, six days a week, and to encourage them to trial the service it has offered shoppers the chance to win a €6 voucher to spend in-store for every 200 points spent online.
5. Sustaining expansion in Romania
Delhaize has maintained its store growth strategy in Romania, aiming to operate 480 stores by the end of 2015, up from 410 at the end of 2014. The retailer said that the pace of store growth would help underpin its targeted sales growth of 27% for 2015, which would see it generate sales of 700 million euros in the country. (www.igd.com)
