Our stakeholders
Customers
Associates
Communities
Shareholders
Suppliers
Governance
Ahold at a glance I Business review
As a major international retailing group with
thousands of suppliers, employing over 200,000
associates, and serving a trading area population
of 90 million people, we have many different
stakeholders who impact or are impacted by our
business in various ways.
Our stakeholders include our customers, associates,
communities (including governments, NGOs,
academic research institutes and industry bodies),
shareholders and suppliers. We engage with
these groups in various ways, including through
stakeholder events, industry-wide conferences,
round-table discussions and supplier days. We do
this in order to gain insight into their expectations
and to share our progress with them. Listening to
and engaging with our stakeholders enables us to
better understand their needs.
Our customers are central to our business. We are
committed to offering them healthy choices and
providing products that are made with respect
for people, animals and the environment.
In addition, we aim to offer competitive prices
combined with high product quality and a great
shopping experience.
We regularly ask our customers what they think of
our stores, assortment and service, including their
perception of Ahold's brands as being healthy
retailers. We receive feedback via third-party surveys,
proprietary tracking studies and consumer panels,
as well as directly from customers in stores and online.
Engaged associates are key to our success.
Their hard work and commitment define us as a
leading international retailer. We constantly strive to
make sure we provide an even better place to work,
every day. We do this by creating workplaces built
on fairness and mutual respect, and by maintaining
strong businesses to drive stable jobs and provide
opportunities for great careers. We respect and
protect the rights of associates: we are committed
to the principles of equal employment opportunities,
freedom of association, and respecting the legal
rights to collective bargaining. We maintain an open
and honest company culture and carry out an annual
associate engagement survey. In 2014, 81% of our
associates participated in the survey globally.
The communities where our customers and
associates live are very important to us.
Our businesses are committed to being active and
engaged members of their communities. We do
this through our initiatives, events and charitable
contributions that support the communities and
neighborhoods in which we operate.
Our shareholders are crucial to our business; they
put their trust in us by investing in Ahold financially.
They monitor our company closely and challenge us
on our strategy and how we manage our company.
We meet with investors, including socially responsible
investment (SRI) analysts, on a regular basis and work
to broaden the investment community's understanding
of our company by providing accurate and timely
information on Ahold's performance and prospects.
We continually engage with our shareholders in
various ways, and our general meetings also provide
an opportunity for them to engage with Ahold.
We rely on our suppliers to deliver the high quality
products our customers expect from us. Increasingly,
we work in collaboration with our suppliers and
engage with them in many ways, aiming to
strengthen and improve our relationships. We hold
supplier events to discuss a wide range of topics,
including company strategy, sustainability, supplier
diversity, and food safety. In addition, we hold
a special supplier day during which awards are
given out for good performance. Through the Albert
Heijn Foundation in Africa we work to improve
the livelihoods of Albert Heijn's African fruit and
vegetable suppliers, which in turn supports their
families and communities and helps to secure long
term relationships with them.
