The Lower House of the Dutch Parliament has passed a new shop opening hours bill which restricted the number of Sundays when shops could open. In 2009, however, many supermarkets (including some EMTÉ stores) were still opening regularly on Sundays. By opening our stores, we meet the needs of the many people in the Netherlands who want to shop on Sundays. Not all EMTÉ supermarkets open on Sundays because we respect local practice and religious beliefs. Some supermarkets are permitted to open on Sundays because they are located in tourist areas, but most take advantage of the exception that allows them to open between 16:00 and 20:00. Under these evening shopping rules, the municipal authority can license one supermarket to open for every 15,000 inhabitants. The municipal authority decides which supermarket that will be. In making that choice, the authorities apply criteria that range from the more or less rational to the plain arbitrary. In all cases, this creates unfair competition, which we oppose. We advocate a ‘level playing field’: either no supermarket can open or all can. Unfortunately, despite the many signals it receives and the fact that the rules are clearly not operating as intended, the government has not yet taken responsibility and introduced more appropriate legislation.

By becoming a Fairtrade/Max Havelaar licence holder in 2009, we now have more opportunities to make our own choices within our sustainability policy framework rather than being dependent on suppliers. This in turn means we can now also apply the fair trade principles to our exclusive brands and so lead the market through differentiation. This quality mark can now be found on a wide range of Sligro Food Group products, including coffee, tea, fruit juices, chocolate, organic cane sugar and cotton. By offering guaranteed prices (profit), the international Max Havelaar quality mark for Fairtrade enables farmers in developing countries to comply with strict environmental requirements (planet) and social criteria (people). Application of Fairtrade conditions transforms the existing trade into a driver for poverty reduction, sustainable development and empowerment in developing countries.

We are concerned about alcohol abuse among young people and believe that the ‘no alcohol under 16’ rule needs to become far more widely accepted in society. Everyone needs to understand that drinking alcohol under the age of 16 is not good for you. And that is something that many people still do not realise. Alcohol abuse by young people needs to be dealt with in a targeted way by a broad coalition of government, health care institutions, business and parents, applying a range of different measures. One significant step in this respect might be to make underage buyers of alcohol themselves liable to prosecution, instead of attributing liability only to and hence imposing sanctions only on supermarkets. Young people should be held directly responsible for their own behaviour. We are taking extra measures to prevent young people under 16 from buying alcohol. Within the Dutch Food Retail Association, the supermarkets have agreed on measures to make it easier to enforce compliance with the age restrictions. Since 2 March 2009, young people up to the age of 20 have been asked to prove their identity and age before they can buy alcohol or tobacco products. This is not a legal requirement, but rather a measure that has been taken by supermarkets themselves. According to the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority’s annual survey, age checks are improving all the time and we as a sector are working closely with the authority to ensure compliance with the age restrictions.

Sligro has developed a concept – Breakpoint – specifically for secondary school canteens. The idea behind Breakpoint is to help schools by offering them a concept that they can use to provide a healthy and responsible choice of products in their canteens. In this way, Breakpoint is responding to trends in society as well as meeting the needs of schools as our customers and those of the end users, their pupils. The Breakpoint concept combines the expertise of a caterer with the product knowledge of a supplier and the location knowledge of the school. The school is responsible for operating the canteen for its own account, but is supported by the Sligro format team. Breakpoint provides a balanced, healthy range of products appealing to today’s tastes and presented in a fresh, fashionable setting. We are working to promote this concept in line with the standards set by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre, which require 80% of the products to be basic food products and 20% extra items. Breakpoint also seeks to reflect the multifunctional way in which school canteens are used, not just a place where pupils come to eat lunch, but a social environment that is used throughout the day. This creates an attractive facility that encourages pupils to congregate in rather than outside the school premises. As well as the range of basic healthy products, the Breakpoint concept also provides a supplementary, rotating menu of products appealing to contemporary tastes. Its aim in this respect is to attract rather than instruct, by grouping products under various headings, including ‘Healthy Break’ for salads and fruit juices and ‘Energy Break’ for vital energy-boosters such as wraps, rolls and sandwiches. The ‘Snack Break’ includes panini with fillings such as fresh tomato, basil and mozzarella, replacing high-fat and deep-fried snacks with healthy, tasty and modern alternatives. In liaison with the school, the range of products offered in the canteen is switched in phases from the ‘traditional’ range to a range meeting the requirements of a healthy school canteen. In this way, Breakpoint has opted for a realistic and achievable approach by establishing an appropriate balance between the healthier products of today and the less healthy products of the past, based on the Netherlands Nutrition Centre’s series of five recommendations. Breakpoint is currently represented at 23 secondary schools and regional training centres. Our target is to implement this format at 40 locations by the end of 2010.

Offsetting CO2 emissions is an aspect of corporate social responsibility that is attracting increasing attention. The huge diversity of our activities and the breadth of our product range make it particularly difficult to adopt a concrete, group-wide approach to this issue. There are certainly opportunities, however, in specific areas, which is why we have chosen to join TNT Post’s ‘Planet Me’ programme. TNT Post has launched an ambitious programme designed to dramatically reduce the CO2 emissions generated from its postal deliveries. Consistent with the policy of the Sligro wholesale format on marketing communications, we also make considerable use of direct mail, which means sending large volumes of mail via TNT Post. We have analysed our postage volumes and destinations in terms of their CO2 footprint and now offset these emissions. TNT Post very much appreciates our contribution to its programme and has agreed to double our investment. This investment is expressed in carbon credits (in other words, certified tonnes of CO2 absorbed or avoided), which are then invested in a wind energy project in India sponsored by TNT. The CO2 emissions generated by our mail sent via TNT Post in 2009 totalled 68.40 tonnes.

Thanks to the location of our central distribution centre in Veghel, containers can be brought in by water. Sea containers can be delivered via the Veghel Inland Terminal on Zuid-Willemsvaart. We have been winding down container transport by road in recent years and practically all containers bringing imported items are now delivered to the Veghel Inland Terminal Veghel. In 2009, this saved over 204,000 truck-kilometres between the Rotterdam container terminal and the Veghel distribution centre. As well as saving money, this brings substantial environmental benefits and helps to alleviate road traffic congestion. We expect the proportion of containers delivered to Sligro Food Group by water to grow significantly in 2010.

As a major supplier of Christmas hampers, we have seen a growing interest among our customers in using their hampers as a way of supporting good causes. We welcome this and are willing to play our part. For the last few years our Christmas hamper range has included items from which some of the sales proceeds go to the Liliane Fund and to Villa Pardoes. We and our customers raised almost €60,000 for these charities through our 2009 Christmas hamper campaign. Another way of using Christmas hampers to contribute to a more sustainable society is by filling them with fair trade products, and this was something we actively promoted in 2009. These activities continue in 2010.