Hannaford and Parent Company’s History with Nazi Controversies
Since launching the What Happened to Hannaford? campaign, the New England Consumer Alliance received a note from a Hannaford customer drawing our attention to a 2024 incident involving Nazi-style propaganda on the retailer's shelves in Maine. In short, Hannaford was found selling a publication promoting white supremacist propaganda by the New England White Network—including a promotion for a Nazi-style book burning to be held during gay pride month.
According to news coverage, “self-avowed National Socialist Ryan Murdough, who founded the New England White Network, ran an ad in the March issue of the Fort Fairfield Journal that included multiple allusions to Nazi history.”
Further, during the course of investigating this unfortunate incident, our researchers uncovered other disturbing connections between Hannaford’s parent company and antisemitic ideology.
In 2014, Hannaford's parent company, Delhaize, came under fire when it was found to be selling costumes that let kids dress up as Nazi concentration camp prisoners.
Two years later, Delhaize merged with another Dutch company, Ahold, to form the conglomerate Ahold Delhaize, which currently owns Hannaford.
And Ahold has a sordid past with Nazi ideology too. In fact, not just with ideology, but with actual Nazis.
During WWII, Ahold was called Albert Heijn (it still operates a grocery chain under that name). Our researchers discovered that during the war, Albert Heijn facilities were used for Nazi events.
In Zaandam — where Ahold Delhaize is still headquartered — the Albert Heijn recreation hall (“Ontspanningsgebouw”) was used for large meals with German soldiers, Wehrmacht officers, and members of the Dutch Nazi NSB (Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging). These events were explicitly aimed at raising money for a Nazi interests.
The local German commander (Ortskommandant Wilhelm Wolniewicz) organized these gatherings, even decorating the Albert Heijn facility with Nazi flags. Photos of these meals — later discovered in the Nazi commander’s home — show uniformed German personnel and NSB members sitting alongside Dutch attendees at Albert Heijn.
Users of a one-pot meal in Zaandam. Date unknown (late 1942 - early 1943). Photographer unknown. Collection of the Zaanstad Municipal Archives
Then, fast forward to 2020, and an Ahold Delhaize website, www.bol.com, came under fire after it refused to stop selling a 1938 antisemitic children’s book titled Der Giftpilz ("The Poisonous Mushroom").
Even when The Dutch Auschwitz Committee and Polish Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum called on the store to immediately stop selling "poisonous books" with antisemitic content, it refused. And today, bol.com continues selling books written by Hitler himself.
Further, just several months after the Der Giftpilz controversy, bol.com agreed to stop selling depictions of a racist blackface character named Zwarte Piet ("Black Pete") — though it's of course concerning that it was selling them in the first place.
NECA condemns white supremacist ideology and the sale of any materials featuring white supremacist propaganda or making light of the Holocaust — whether at Hannaford or any other Ahold Delhaize brand.
