AH Goes Upscale
By Héléne Degryse

Kies&Kook kiosks in Albert Heijn stores attract working moms who want an easy solution for their family’s dinner.

The leading supermarket chain in The Netherlands, Albert Heijn is rejuvenating it store brand image with two new premium and cutting-edge private label brands: the AH Excellent range and the AH Kies&Kook range.

Albert Heijn, the Dutch leading retailer–with 710 AH supermarkets–has a very strong private label offer with various lines covering all market segments and price categories.

The Albert Heijn products are so well known that they are perceived by Dutch customers as A-brand quality items for private label prices! In 2005, the retailer added a completely new PL line to its assortment; this range, called “Excellent” offers top-notch restaurant and deli specialties at an attractive price. Eating out in the comfort of home, is now possible with the Excellent Albert Heijn range.

Recently, Albert Heijn has also added another successful store brand called “Kies&Kook” (Choose&Cook). It includes complete solutions for an easy to prepare meal.

These two ranges are comprehensive in scope and appeal to a wide range of customers. The Excellent range caters to food loving customers in search of special value-added products whereas the Kies&Kook products seduce busy parents searching for nutritious, healthy, easy-to-prepare and sharply priced meal solutions.

Excellent Range

Launched in 2005, the AH Excellent PL range offers premium products at a reasonable price. The Excellent products cater to demanding food-lovers and offer a large variety of top-notch food items for gourmets used to top-of-the-range products with added value. The variety of products is truly incredible and it takes the Albert Heijn PL offer to a new dimension: a gourmet shop level.

Whereas the regular Albert Heijn private label aims at offering A-brand quality for PL prices, the Excellent Albert Heijn store brand offers top-restaurant quality, innovative properties and delicious food products to eat in the comfort of the consumer’s home.

The whole range is very complete and Excellent articles are cleverly presented throughout the whole shop in the different product categories: pizza, rice, pasta, sandwich spread, olive oil, coffee, dry sausage, salads, salmon, soups, sushi, ice-creams, etc. The most difficult thing for the customer will be to choose!

For each product range, the shopping shelf presents the A-brand products, the regular Albert Heijn PL counterpart, sometimes an organic version and then, the regal Excellent products.

The Excellent offer stands out for many reasons. First of all, its design is eye-catching: the packaging is sleek and futuristic with clean lines, it already gives an impression of luxury and quality (in glass or hard cardboard for drinks and pizzas whereas the other products are presented in plastic containers).

The color code is powerful and logical: a shiny metal gray packaging, the AH letters are white against a catchy orange background and next to them, the word which says it all: Excellent! No doubt it is possible for the customer to understand that these products belong to another dimension even if their prices are still reasonable.

Finally, all Excellent products bear stunning pictures of the products or ingredients.

The Excellent Bianca stone-baked pizza is genuinely irresistible. This fresh product is sold in a hard metal gray cardboard box presenting various stylish pictures: on the front of the product is a depiction of a typical Italian market stall with authentic cheeses and at the back there are colorful pictures of the pizza which is being baked. A window in the packaging reveals the savory pizza as well as a bag of arugula salad and a small olive oil flask for the finishing touch. The whole combination is simply mouth-watering and retails at 4.99Euros, which is much cheaper than a restaurant offering. This product epitomizes the Excellent range: a mix of top quality, savors, beautiful packaging, and a stylish personal finishing touch (arugula and olive oil).

In the fresh juices segment, the Excellent offer is also special and strong. An entire array of freshly squeezed juices is available under the regular Albert Heijn store brand but the Excellent products are “smoothies” not simple juices and they are sold in 3 different flavors (mango/passion fruit, strawberry/banana and strawberry/yoghurt. The mango passion fruit smoothie contains the juice of three and a half oranges, one passion fruit and three mashed mangos. This product, which retails at 2.19 Euros for 500ml, is high in vitamin C and is on the store shelves within 24 hours after it is produced: its freshness is guaranteed.

For many product categories there is an Excellent Albert Heijn item and the comparison can be noticed: Excellent products are high-end items and a real treat.

For instance, Excellent defies the fresh salad segment with gourmet offers: the Excellent goat cheese salad with goat cheese, apples, sun dried tomatoes, walnuts and honey dressing is a succulent and complete meal. Compared to the other PL salads available, the Excellent products are more sophisticated and prepared with exclusive ingredients. The packaging is more robust and elegant as well so the slightly higher price tag (4.89 Euros instead of 3.89 Euros) is easy to swallow.

There are 5 dried pastas sold under the Excellent range: sun dried tomatoes pasta, green and white tagliatelle, natural penne, black squid-ink pasta and pesto penne. They are all sold (for 1.99 Euros) in a 500g gray paper bag bearing a stylish sepia picture of traditional Italian cities and monuments.

The Excellent coffee offer is plentiful. Albert Heijn’s PL Perla regular coffee is considered as A-brand by customers and now the Excellent Perla products push the PL offer to a higher gourmet level with slightly higher prices. There are five filter coffees available under the Excellent Albert Heijn brand: a Perla Ethiopia coffee made from Arabica beans and with a balanced taste, a “Brasil santos” coffee with a delicate mild taste, an aromatic Guatemala coffee, a strong and spicy “Java” coffee and a “mokka” coffee. All products retail at 2.29 Euros for 250g except the mokka retailing at 1.89 Euros. The products are sold in reasealable freshness packaging in the usual Excellent gray color and they bear stylish color pictures of the country of origin of the coffee beans.

There are also coffee pads available under the Excellent Albert Heijn range: they are sold in a sleek round metal box with geometrical pattern and retail at €1.89 for 12 pads. The three products have catchy names: Double Boost, Smooth Power and Sweet Energy. Excellent contains 2 espresso varieties: “dolce” and “originale” retailing at 2.49 Euros. There are also coffee beans available under the “originale” variety, they are sold in a 250g and a 1 kg packaging and retailing at 2.49 Euros and 7.99 Euros respectively. Finally there is also a caffeine-free product available under the Excellent brand, it retails at 2.49 Euros for 250g.

The Excellent range is constantly expanding and very trend reactive. During Christmas and Easter seasons, special celebration products are temporarily added to the Excellent range.

The Excellent products are a true motor of the Albert Heijn shops and a welcome addition to the already well celebrated other store brands. They are heavily promoted in the Allerhande, the free recipe magazine published monthly by Albert Heijn. Each month a different Excellent product is put in the spotlight in the “our pride section” and its making is explained. Recently, the origin of the various Excellent olive oils (particularly the truffle oil) has been explained. The writer of the letter of the month is always awarded with a basket full of Excellent products.

In a nutshell, all Excellent products are very well named; they are items with a special story and unique qualities: they allow the Albert Heijn customers to eat restaurant quality products in the comfort of their home.

Kies&Kook

Kies&Kook is another innovative private label range from Albert Heijn.

The Kies&Kook range contains well-priced, healthy and convenient products for small families. This successful range is only available at the bigger Albert Heijn stores and a whole shopping shelf is dedicated to it.

The concept is crystal-clear: ready-to-use ingredients to fix a healthy and nutritious meal for a family of 2 adults and 2 small children. It is the ideal solution for busy parents who do not wish to buy easy comfort food but do not want either to think about recipes and to spend (or better said, lose) time in the kitchen.
The name of the Range says it all: Kies&Kook (Choose&Cook) and the Albert Heijn customer has a meal ready on the table in 15 minutes. This complete meal solution costs 8 Euros and is divided in 4 steps, each one on its own store shelf.

Step one (lowest of the shelf) is made of pasta, potato or rice sold in a 475 g packaging.

Step two is the vegetable mix (sold in a plastic bag).

Step three is the protein ingredient (fish of meat, but there is also a vegetarian offer based on tofu).

Step four is the sauce.

The meals are really tasty and inspired by the Italian, Asian or Dutch culinary traditions. The products are delivered daily so their freshness is guaranteed. The presented combination of 4 ingredients costs 8 Euros. It is of course possible to make your own ingredient combination but the individual price will then be paid.

The whole range is well defined; the design is clear, modern and simple, with transparent containers revealing fresh and colorful products. The step numbers are clearly indicated on the packaging and the white letter AH logo is strategically located against a blue background.

The main color of Kies&Kook is orange and the whole range is well explained; a leaflet explains how the range works, all products contain clear information about the ingredients, calories and cooking instructions. Cooking with Kies& Kook is a child’s game and it is the perfect meal solution for economically minded clients searching for healthy offers.