Some of the world's largest retailers and food producers (including Amazon, Ikea, Inditex and Unilever) are pledging to make their maritime shipping entirely emission-free by 2040.

Today, Relay opened its first store in the Netherlands at the railway station of Breda. The chain plans to open seven branches in the near future.

The French retail group Auchan sells its share in the Taiwanese RT-Mart to the local market leader. In doing so, the group completely withdrew from Asia, one year after selling its Chinese activities.

In the fight against food waste, the British supermarket chain Iceland is handing out food that has reached the last day of its sell-by date to online customers for free.

Lidl will stop selling Vittel mineral water in the future. The discounter is one of the French brand's main distribution partners in Germany.

Mastercard is planning to discontinue its well-known Maestro payment cards soon. Needless to say, this will also entail readjustments for retailers.

Barry Callebaut has opened a new logistics centre in Lokeren (between Antwerp and Ghent) in Belgium. ‘The Chocolate Box’ is the world's biggest chocolate warehouse - and the most sustainable one.

Brand manufacturers are complaining that retail alliance Epic Partners, which was recently formed at the initiative of Edeka, is abusing its power to put pressure on suppliers.

E-commerce does not have a very green image: scenes of delivery vans driving up and down our streets, sometimes two couriers from the same supplier turning up at the same time, an endless stream of packages being returned free of charge,... Everyone struggles with the problem, but the solution is not self-evident.

In a store in Paris, supermarket chain Intermarché is testing a smart shopping basket to allow till-free shopping.

The French luxury group Kering has once again grown strongly over the past three months, although its most important brand (Gucci) performed well below expectations.

Unilever has reported disappointing sales figures today: in volume, the company sold 1.5 % less than last year. However, a significant price increase did enable total sales to rise. Costs will remain high for some time, so prices may still go up again.

By opening a flagship restaurant in Antwerp, street food chain Pitaya is reinforcing its ambitions: to have 70 Benelux branches in seven years' time. Next year, the first locations in the Netherlands and Luxembourg will open, says Marco Tessaro from investment platform Alpha Seed.

Nestlé says it is raising prices "in a responsible way" and expects to grow by 6 to 7 % this year, driven by rising sales of coffee, pet food and plant-based products.

Belgian retail entrepreneur Jan Ollevier is preparing to sell his company: the eighty bathroom and furniture outlets of X²O, Overstock, Exterioo and Juntoo will soon get a new owner.

The shareholders meeting of Belgian fashion group FNG ended abruptly on Wednesday morning: CEO Paul Lembrechts resigned after his remuneration was rejected. The future of the company is now highly uncertain.

An almost week-long strike at Lidl Belgium has ended: unions and management have agreed on measures to lower the workload. All stores have reopened today.

Procter & Gamble has seen its sales go up, but profit go down slightly in the first quarter of its broken financial year. The FMCG giant again warns of rising raw materials prices.

Danone was able to increase its turnover in the third quarter thanks to price increases. Like nearly the entire industry, the French dairy giant faces higher raw material costs, which it is passing on to customers.

The Colruyt family, owner of Belgium's biggest supermarket chain, will take a stake in Dutch bike builder Santos Bikes through its investment vehicle Korys.

British supermarket chain Tesco has opened its first store where customers can do their shopping without scanning items or queueing at checkout. The store is located in Holborn, in the centre of London.

The topic has been brewing at Colruyt Group for some time, as CEO Jef Colruyt approached the symbolic age of 63: who would succeed him? A theme that has made it to the top of the agenda because of a big story in the Belgian newspaper De Tijd, in which people speculated about potential successors.

Due to the Covid crisis and - to a lesser extent - Wibra's bankruptcy in Belgium, the company recorded a somewhat declining turnover in 2020. However, they realised a slightly higher profit.

The Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com is coming to the Netherlands... with a brick-and-mortar store in Leiden. Under the name Ochama - to prevent any confusion with JD Sports - the world's third-largest e-tailer will open its doors on November 11th.

In the UK, Amazon has drawn the ire of smaller retailers by brandishing sign-up bonuses of up to 3,000 pounds (3,550 euros) for new workers as the busy Christmas period approaches.

Selfridges is negotiating with Qatari investors over a possible sale for four billion pounds (€4.7 billion), which would see the luxury department store change hands for the first time in almost 20 years.

EuroCommerce, the business federation of the European retail and wholesale sector, chose an internal candidate to succeed director-general Christian Verschueren: Christel Delberghe has worked for the organisation for 20 years.

Godiva has reached a settlement of 15 million dollars (12.9 million euros) with US consumers. They assumed they were buying Belgian chocolates.

The Swedish furniture giant is chartering additional ships, buying more shipping containers, putting more effort into rail transport and moving goods between warehouses to mitigate the effects of the global logistics crisis.

The logistical problems at Carrefour Belgium continue, even though the strike at Kuehne+Nagel's distribution centre in Nivelles has been ended a week ago. The unions are afraid the problem is structural, and point to the trucker shortage.

Dozens of Lidl stores in Belgium are closed due to a strike for the third day this week and on Saturday, the unions even hope to keep all 309 of them closed. The problem is the workload, and the fact that management has postponed reconciliation talks to Monday.

If you think you often see stores of similar chains group together, you may be right. The right neighbour can triple your sales, new research indicates. To many Belgian stores, the favourite neighbour seems to be Dutch drugstore chain Kruidvat.