ZAANDAM, THE NETHERLANDS - Ahold Delhaize, an international food retail group and a leader in both supermarkets and e-commerce, reports second quarter results.

Comments from Frans Muller, President and CEO of Ahold Delhaize

“In the second quarter, we delivered another solid performance, demonstrating the resilience of our Growing Together strategy and the strength of our local brands in a challenging market. Every week, millions of loyalty interactions help our brands understand customers in real time. Combined with data and AI, these insights have allowed our brands to personalize experiences, improve decisions and strengthen their connection with the communities they serve.

“This summer marks the 10th anniversary of the merger between Ahold and Delhaize Group – a milestone that reminds us how much we have accomplished. What started as a belief that strong local brands become even stronger through international scale has become a proven model for profitable growth and market share expansion. Together, our brands have successfully navigated through unprecedented change, continued to earn customers' trust, and consistently created value for all our stakeholders. As we enter into our next decade, we do so with confidence, clear priorities and significant opportunities ahead.

“Q2 net sales increased 1.9% at constant rates (0.3% at actual rates), with comparable sales growth excluding gasoline of 1.2%. During the quarter, we invested in customer value, strengthened our positions in key markets and accelerated innovation, while maintaining strong cost discipline. These actions are particularly important in an environment where households remain value conscious, and customers continue to make careful choices about where they shop. This balanced approach enabled us to navigate macroeconomic and geopolitical pressures, absorb the majority of costs from higher energy prices, and deliver a healthy underlying operating margin of 3.9%. On an IFRS basis, we delivered operating income of €866 million. Most importantly, customers responded positively to our efforts, supporting resilient volumes in markets under pressure and driving market share gains across most of our major brands (U.S. market share based on latest available Nielsen Data – Q1 2026).

“Own brands are a key competitive advantage across our portfolio, helping customers manage their budgets without compromising on quality while deepening loyalty to our brands. During the quarter, we grew own-brand food penetration by 0.7 percentage points, marking an important milestone as we now surpass 40% penetration at the Group level. Hannaford has priced more than 3,500 key value items in its own-brand assortment at parity with leading competitors. Albert Heijn lowered prices on more than 500 items to further strengthen its value perception. And in Serbia, Maxi now offers hundreds of high-quality affordable products under its new 'Price Favorites' label. Delhaize expanded its loyalty program for families through which – for one euro per month – families can get additional volume discounts on a wide range of healthy and plant-based own-brand products.

“In the U.S., we strengthened our competitive position in an environment where value and convenience remain top priorities for customers. Net sales increased 1.4% at constant rates (decreased 1.3% at actual rates), while comparable sales growth excluding gasoline was 0.8%. A key highlight was our strong online performance, with online sales growing 14.5% at constant rates (11.5% at actual rates). This underscores the value of our omnichannel model in expanding reach, enhancing convenience and attracting new customers. At the same time, we made targeted price investments, including lowering everyday prices on thousands of items across Stop & Shop's 137 stores in New York and New Jersey. All Stop & Shop locations now have price investments in place. Across our U.S. business, these actions are supporting market share gains and net promoter score improvements, despite lower topline growth from a challenging backdrop that included lower egg prices, pharmacy pricing changes related to the Inflation Reduction Act and reduced SNAP benefits.

“Our business in Europe delivered another solid quarter, with broad-based strong performance across the region. Net sales increased 2.6% at constant rates (2.4% at actual rates), while comparable sales excluding gasoline increased 1.7%. Our brands in Belgium are building on encouraging momentum, supported by excellent operational discipline and the success of our localization and franchising strategy. Both Delhaize and Albert Heijn continue to grow share in the Belgian market, reflecting the strength of our complementary propositions. Albert, in the Czech Republic, delivered its 38thconsecutive quarter of comparable sales growth (excluding calendar shifts), demonstrating the strength of consistent execution and a strong customer proposition in a deflationary environment.

Q2 Financial highlights

Ahold Delhaize's net sales were €23.2 billion, an increase of 1.9% at constant exchange rates and up 0.3% at actual exchange rates. Our net sales growth was driven by comparable sales growth excluding gasoline of 1.2%, higher gasoline sales, the Delfood acquisition, and net store openings. The Company's Q2 comparable sales excluding gasoline were negatively impacted by 0.1 percentage points due to calendar shifts and by 0.4 percentage points due to a reduction in pharmacy prices related to the Inflation Reduction Act. Egg price deflation and lower SNAP benefits from program changes in the U.S. had a negative impact of 0.5 percentage points.

In Q2, Ahold Delhaize's online sales increased 8.6% at constant exchange rates. This was driven by 14.5% growth in the U.S.

See the full release here.