Delhaize Brand Guidelines: The 1867 Lion of Charleroi, Le Lion Signs and Ahold Delhaize

Brothers, a depot and a lion.

Delhaize began near Charleroi, in Belgium’s Hainaut province. Dutch Wikipedia says the sons of Jacques Delhaize, a wine merchant in Ransart, stood behind two Belgian grocery chains, and that in 1867 Jules and Auguste Delhaize founded a business in colonial goods and drinks under the name Delhaize Frères et Cie, with the Belgian lion as its emblem. Their brothers Adolphe and Edouard and their brother-in-law Jules Vieujant soon joined. French Wikipedia places the first shop in Ransart; Dutch Wikipedia names Charleroi, followed quickly by Marchienne-au-Pont, La Louvière, Mons, Namur, Huy and Châtelet.

The model was a network of branches selling at the same prices, supplied from a central depot that let the company buy in bulk and cut out intermediaries, Dutch Wikipedia says; wine, imported in casks and bottled by the firm, was a distinctive line from the start. In 1871 the company moved its base to Molenbeek, in Brussels, close to the railways and the Brussels–Charleroi canal. The family also split into separate firms: Louis Delhaize started his own business in 1870, limited to Hainaut, and Adolphe Delhaize followed in 1874, with the brothers agreeing not to open branches within 500 metres of one another. The Louis Delhaize business grew into a separate group with its own shops, a distinction that matters when reading about either company.

In 1875 the name became “Delhaize Frères et Cie: Le Lion,” and the motto “L’union fait la force” (unity is strength) was added to the shop signs; over time the name settled as Delhaize Le Lion / Delhaize De Leeuw. Between 1883 and 1914, Dutch Wikipedia says, the chain opened more than 500 branches across Belgium, each with the same logo, a window showing prices and recurring advertising. In the 1930s it introduced a budget brand, Derby, and by 1939 it had more than 744 branches and about 1,500 affiliated shops. The sources used for this guide do not say how the company operated during the occupation of 1940–1944. In 1950 Delhaize Le Lion and Adolphe Delhaize merged their back offices.

Self-service, Food Town and many fascias.

The post-war Delhaize looked to the United States. After study visits to American supermarkets, Dutch Wikipedia says, the company opened its first supermarket in 1957 on Place Flagey in Ixelles, Brussels, with full self-service, pre-packed meat, frozen food, chilled fresh produce and a printed till receipt. It joined the Brussels stock exchange in 1962. When a 1975 Belgian law restricted the opening of new supermarkets, it diversified: the drugstore chain DI, modelled on the American drugstore, opened in 1975 and was sold in 2007.

The same period took Delhaize abroad. Dutch Wikipedia says it bought a 34.5% stake in Food Town Stores, a 22-store chain in North and South Carolina, raised that holding to 52% in 1976, and renamed the chain Food Lion in 1983; English Wikipedia dates the US entry to 1983 and says the new name followed a naming conflict with other stores. Delhaize Group later traded in Greece as Alfa Beta, in Serbia as Maxi and in Romania as Mega Image, Dutch Wikipedia says, and English Wikipedia records that it left the Czech market in 2007 and Germany in 2009.

At home, the Belgian network spread across several fascias, from full supermarkets to AD Delhaize, Proxy Delhaize and Shop’n Go, and Dutch Wikipedia says most stores are run by independent operators. Own label is layered by price and purpose: French Wikipedia lists the main Delhaize own brand alongside Delhaize 365 for basics, Delhaize Bio for organic products and Taste of Inspirations for premium food. In 2020, French Wikipedia says, the head office moved from Molenbeek to Asse, west of Brussels.

Fascias, folders and own label.

The Netherlands and Belgium have a dense network of discount, home, fashion and grocery chains, and many of them present themselves first through the shop front. A fascia on a shopping street is often the most visible part of the brand: when Blokker restarted in 2025, NOS reported that the old logo, in block capitals and without its full stop, went back up on the fronts of the reopened shops, and in April 2024 RetailDetail reported that Xenos would put its logo on eight former Casa shops it had taken back.

Websites carry the rest of the identity. Xenos groups its range online into departments such as furniture, garden, cooking and table, household and party goods, with trend pages and a customer club called Xtra Xenos; both Blokker and Xenos publish a folder, the retail leaflet, on their sites next to a shop finder. Xenos says it follows trends closely and buys new ranges in large volumes, so the assortment changes quickly.

Ownership is part of the story, and the companies describe it plainly. Some of these chains grew up inside family groups: Blokker Holding, built by the descendants of a couple who opened a shop in Hoorn in 1896, once owned Xenos, Leen Bakker, Bart Smit and Intertoys before selling them off between 2017 and 2019, and Xenos now describes its owner, Nieuwgeluk Group, as a Dutch family office. Restructurings, bankruptcies and restarts have reshaped several familiar names, and corporate pages and the trade press record those changes with dates.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand: who founded it, who owns it, how its shops, ranges and logos have changed, and what has happened to it. Company statements are marked as such, and counts of shops and countries are given with the date of the source.

A merger, franchising and a family reunion.

Delhaize is now part of a Dutch-Belgian group. English Wikipedia says Delhaize Group and Ahold agreed on 24 June 2015 to merge into a new parent company based in the Netherlands, and that Ahold Delhaize was formed in July 2016, with its headquarters in Zaandam and shares listed on Euronext Amsterdam and Brussels. In Belgium the deal needed competition approval: ESM: European Supermarket Magazine reported on 16 March 2016 that the Belgian Competition Authority had cleared it on condition that 13 existing stores, eight Albert Heijn stores and five franchised Delhaize stores, were sold.

The store structure in Belgium then changed. Delhaize announced in March 2023 that it would hand its 128 remaining company-run Belgian supermarkets to independent operators, Dutch Wikipedia says. RetailDetail reported on 6 November 2024 that the last of the 128 would reopen on 7 November 2024, a remodelled branch in Antwerp, a year after the first transferred store reopened in Denderleeuw.

In 2026 the two family branches came together again. RetailDetail reported on 28 January 2026 that the Belgian Competition Authority had approved Delhaize’s acquisition of Delfood, part of the former Louis Delhaize Group, on condition that six Delfood neighbourhood stores and one Delhaize Shop&Go were passed to another operator. On 2 February 2026 it reported the deal completed: 303 convenience and neighbourhood stores joined, bringing the network to 1,109 stores in Belgium and Luxembourg, with Delfood kept as a separate legal entity and the louis delhaize brand continuing.

For a design guide, Delhaize shows how one emblem can carry a retailer across more than 150 years: a lion chosen in 1867, a motto added to the shop signs in 1875, and a single logo repeated on hundreds of branches before 1914. Compare Colruyt, another Belgian grocer, and Etos, a Dutch drugstore chain. For this guide we use a lion red, ink and stone with a brick brown, with a classic serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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