Colruyt Group and the City of Antwerp join forces to ensure even safer, quieter and more sustainable supply to the city's shops

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Colruyt Group and the City of Antwerp have today taken an important step towards more efficient and sustainable urban procurement. The two partners have signed a charter that encourages dialogue around deliveries, confirming their commitment to working together to tackle concrete logistical bottlenecks in a challenging environment. Through this cooperation, they hope to lay the foundations for a structural dialogue and a viable, forward-looking logistics model for city shops. This should benefit local residents and customers, as well as the city and the supermarket itself. Antwerp is the first city to embark on this path - this cooperation should become an inspiring example for other cities and municipalities in Belgium.

Importance of structural dialogue on supply

Goods transport is essential for supplying supermarkets, even in densely populated urban environments. Every day, some 800 drivers travel 200,000 km (more than 4 times around the world) on behalf of Colruyt Group to make supplying the shops as efficient and safe as possible. On average, a Colruyt Lowest Prices shop receives three full truckloads of food every day, representing around 40 tonnes of food. At the same time, goods traffic in urban areas poses problems in terms of congestion, noise and emissions. Without a well-organised flow of goods, urban systems quickly become inefficient. As urban logistics is strongly influenced by land-use planning and infrastructure, it is essential that logistics needs are taken into account from the outset. This requires realistic and forward-looking regulations. Ensuring liveability requires joint action: cities and logistics partners must cooperate structurally and engage in dialogue to achieve workable and sustainable solutions.

Colruyt Group wants to continue to play a pioneering role in Belgium to achieve efficient, safe and sustainable supply, more than ever in the city too. Stefan Goethaert, CEO of Colruyt Group, says: "The challenges of urban deliveries have become more complex. More shops, growing demand, limited delivery windows, more traffic jams and busy shopping environments demand more flexibility from our carriers, but also from the cities and their residents. These residents are also our customers: it is in our interest to ensure that they are as unhindered as possible by the transport of goods in their town".

Charter with the city of Antwerp: from dialogue to lasting agreement

Today, Stefan Goethaert, Antwerp mobility councillor Koen Kennis and Flemish mobility minister Annick De Ridder met at a Colruyt shop in Antwerp to sign a charter. In doing so, the parties undertook to work together to find solutions for safe and efficient deliveries in an urban context.

Stefan Goethaert explains some of the elements of the charter : "By choosing intelligent routes and optimising delivery windows, we reduce the number of kilometres travelled and traffic jams. We focus on silent, safe and neighbourhood-oriented deliveries - where possible with electric vehicles - while respecting quality of life, such as school environments. Through structural dialogue, the partners are mutually reinforcing their pioneering role, and we are sharing this model with other towns and cities. It is only through genuine collaborations like this that we will be able to achieve sustainable and affordable urban logistics". Safety remains a crucial factor. "With this charter and the city of Antwerp, we also want to contribute to Europe's 'Vision Zero' objective: zero road deaths by 2050. This is something that we have long considered to be very important. More than 25 years ago, we were the first retailer in Belgium to introduce a "Safety and Courtesy Charter". Today, this charter is more relevant than ever", adds Mr Goethaert.

Antwerp is the first city to facilitate such a dialogue with a fixed point of contact. This collaboration is part of Antwerp's efforts to enhance quality of life, road safety and climate objectives. "As a city, we want to reconcile liveability, accessibility and sustainability, and to do so in complete safety. This charter helps us to work with supermarkets to develop structural solutions that benefit our residents, retailers and logistics partners. In constructive consultation with Colruyt, we have taken the first step towards a generally applicable charter for supermarket deliveries. I look forward to continued cooperation with Colruyt and invite other supermarkets to enter into a dialogue on deliveries", said Koen Kennis, Alderman for Mobility at the City of Antwerp.

The Flemish Minister for Mobility, Annick De Ridder, added: "Flanders is the logistics hub of Europe: every day, the ports, platforms and transporters ensure that the shops remain full and that our economy functions. But this also brings challenges to our towns and cities. With this charter, local authorities and businesses are showing that things can be done differently: through cooperation, intelligent deliveries and respect for the environment, we are making goods traffic safer and more liveable. In this way, we are jointly assuming responsibility for a public space that belongs to everyone."

The framework for the Colruyt Group's actions in favour of more sustainable logistics

For years, the Colruyt Group has been building an efficient, workable and forward-looking logistics model. For example, activities are spread throughout the day to plan deliveries during traffic jams. In addition, the company always strives to achieve a maximum truck fill rate of no less than 94% to minimise the number of journeys, and continues to invest in silent technologies to reduce noise pollution during deliveries. Stefan Goethaert adds: "We are also making our goods transport increasingly sustainable, and vehicles play a key role in this. The Colruyt Group is investing in a sustainable fleet of battery-electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles, with the ultimate aim of achieving zero emissions."