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Albert Heijn store in Roermond, The Netherlands
Photo: Caroline Seidel/ dpa
coin with you?
Or at least a chip?
Customers of the largest Dutch supermarket chain will no longer have to ask themselves this question when they want to get a shopping trolley.
"Fortunately, the customers are nice enough to bring the cars back like this," a spokeswoman for the Albert Heijn trading company told NOS.
The change in car rental is based on experiences during the corona pandemic.
The deposit system had to be suspended for hygienic reasons.
The supermarkets quickly noticed that no more trolleys had disappeared than before.
The free availability of the rolling shopping aids is not only more convenient for the customers.
It also helps to save thousands of kilos of plastic for chip production every year, said Albert Heijn spokeswoman Anoesjka Aspeslagh.
The hundreds of branches across the country can decide for themselves exactly when the trolleys are no longer chained up.
But in a few weeks it should be everywhere.
It remains to be seen whether other retail chains will follow suit.
The Netherlands also pioneered the reverse trend.
System from the 80s
The coin system was introduced in 1985 because at that time a large number of cars parked far apart caused problems.
First, a guilder had to be inserted into the corresponding lock, later a 50 eurocent coin.
Many Dutch supermarkets also started issuing their own chips.
In times when cashless payments are becoming more and more common in Germany, shopping trolleys are often the last relic where you can’t get digital: Even those who go shopping without a wallet need a coin or a chip for the trolley.
The supermarket chain Albert Heijn emerged from a grocery store in North Holland and is over 130 years old.
It is now part of the Amsterdam-based Ahold Group, which employs around 380,000 people worldwide.
mamk/dpa
