Europe and U.S. volumes are growing as inflation comes down, Ahold Delhaize CEO says
We are quite happy with the first quarter. We are ahead of consensus in almost all the numbers and we ran in the 1.6% growth comparable sales ex gas for the total company. And we have to put this into perspective, the inflation came down considerably, March inflation in the US, food at home 1.2%, in Europe, the Dutch market 1.2% as well. So given that fact, we see growing trends in volumes which is a very good thing. We see positive volumes in Europe and we see a growing trend in volumes in the US as well. So I think we, we worked very hard in the last quarter to to bring down our cost and to get more competitive also at private label, especially the price entry to serve that consumer which is also looking for more value. I can see the underlying operating margin is 4%, but just explain to us how price sensitive the US consumer is becoming versus the European one. I think it’s reasonably comparable. Their household budgets are under pressure. So it’s our task to make sure that within the store customers have options in price but also in value and also in quality. And that’s exactly what we do. We see our private label ranges growing in the Dutch market. Our price entry ranges grew at 17% in items and also in the US we see growing ranges in private label give the consumer choice and of course it’s our interest to make sure that if consumers have say smaller wallets to deal with that they can also in store and make those choices And that’s exactly what we do. That’s why I’m pretty happy with the the numbers I saw and gives us also a lot of confidence for the full year guidance as well. Yeah, friends, I’m sure you’ve got an offering for budget strapped or budget conscious consumers as well. But what we’re really fascinated in seeing is the greater trend as well because we’re seeing lots of comments around the periphery about more use of consumer credit, more use of credit cards and more discerning consumer as well. Can you just talk us through what you’re seeing on that consumer as well? I mean again, I know you’ve addressed it a bit with Karen as well, but are you noticing A meaningful increase in their, in how conscious they are on price at the moment? Yeah, I think it’s a little different to when we talk about consumer credits. We see credits in the US going up, but still a very robust consumer landscape in Europe. It’s not so much a credit type of market. And there we see also that it has been stabilizing a little bit. We see energy prices coming down in Europe. That means also for consumers, we see interest rates reasonably stabilizing or going down a little bit and those are positive things also to get a more robust consumer climate. So if we look at our business itself, we see still the market shares in our company, if it’s all marketplace ball, still gaining share. If you see our brands in in, in the stores gaining share also in Europe in most of the markets. And the US East Coast is a little bit different where we have seen a little bit mixed baskets between our brands. But overall we’ll have a stable market share there too. So also their consumers pretty robust and especially in foods you can imagine it’s a different game than in, in this question, right or in non food purchases.