Sustainability, a "must"

Among the areas of intervention most frequently detected when analyzing the behavior of the main European brands, the commitment to the reduction of plastic on the shelves (22%), the reduction of food waste (19%), the lower use of additives in food (19%), the use of sustainable packaging (14%).

Koen de Jong, managing partner of Iplc, presented the results of an investigation carried out among some fifty European retailers from 10 different countries: Italy, Holland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and France. Since 2020, nearly 900 sustainable initiatives have been identified for MDD alone.

Replacement and recycling

From the drastic reduction of non-essential packaging to the introduction of spare part ("replacement"), from the opportunities of " vegetable ” (which implies consuming mainly fruits and vegetables, whole grains and avoiding or minimizing the intake of animal products and processed foods) to sustainable packaging even in seasonal products, there are numerous actions that position sustainability as a priority also in the fruit department and vegetables.

Consumption and consumer

The drivers of change, emerged at the conference, were identified in the structural changes in the dynamics of consumption, firstly the increase in meals consumed at home, and were summarized in four priority elements that characterized the choices of European distributors : transparency with the consumer, waste reduction, choice of local suppliers, healthy lifestyle.

In England, several concrete examples of retail sustainability emerge, guided in some cases by the innovative model of Wrap, a British NGO working with companies and individuals to reduce waste and develop sustainable products, in collaboration with the British government and major food retailers in the country, adopting clear and shared goals and roadmaps. The competitive landscape in the English soil is changing rapidly, with an e-commerce grocery channel that has exceeded the 15% incidence of sales in large-scale distribution and renewed price competition.

Goodbye to plastic

Meanwhile, the Dutch brand Albert Heijn, after Carrefour France, has also announced that it will withdraw all plastic bags from its fruit and vegetable departments to replace them with reusable and washable alternatives: they will disappear from all stores by the end of 2021., canceling the use of approximately 130 million single-use bags, equivalent to 243 tons of plastic, per year. At the same time, a return system will be put into operation for the approximately 31 million shopping bags that are used each year to deliver the purchase at home, with the result that approximately 645 tons of plastic per year will be recycled responsibly.