SuperPlus and the My Delhaize app: what food retailers can learn from it

Search for "My Delhaize app" in Belgium and most people are standing in a store wanting to know what their points are worth. But some of those searchers sit at a head office, at a food retailer weighing up its own programme, wanting to see how the biggest player does it first. This piece is for that second group: what SuperPlus, Delhaize's loyalty programme, does, where it works well, where it falls short, and what you as a retailer could copy or do better. I'm basing this on public sources and reviews, and on what we see at NeoDay in food retail. Where a figure is missing, I'll say so.

How SuperPlus and the My Delhaize app work

The SuperPlus card is free. You join with a physical card or the digital card in the My Delhaize app, and you collect points in store and online.

For every 2 euros you spend, you get a point. At 500 points you get a 5 euro purchase voucher. You can also trade points for products or free delivery, or donate them to charity. There are regular extra savings campaigns on top. Every customer also gets personal weekly e-Deals based on their buying behaviour, and activating those earns extra points. If you agree to personalisation, you also get 10% off fruit and vegetables with a Nutri-Score of A or B, and off Delhaize's plant-based products.

The app is the centre of it all. You always have your digital card with you, you see your points and e-Deals, you order your groceries online through it, and the barcode scanner shows you a product's Nutri-Score.

Status levels such as bronze, silver and gold, earned through frequent purchases, aren't part of it. Delhaize has chosen two other routes: personalisation and, since April 2026, a paid tier. With SuperPlus Families (12 euros a year) you get extra discounts, including 10% when you buy the same own-brand product three times, plus 30% off delivery fees. SuperPlus Delivery (120 euros a year) adds free home delivery on top. Want more benefit, pay for a better package. Buy a lot, and you don't get status for it. That wasn't always the case. Until October 2022, the SuperPlus discount on healthy products still depended on your monthly spend: 5, 10 or 15 percent. Delhaize scaled that back to a single level and then opted for personalisation and a subscription instead.

That's a deliberate choice, and an interesting one. But I wouldn't say status has no place in a supermarket. At Bravo, a supermarket chain that runs on our platform, the programme is actually built on tiers. Every month we look at the past three months there: keep coming back, and you keep your level. That way status doesn't just reward big spenders, it rewards the people who keep returning. And in food retail, that's exactly what matters. You can read more on when tiers make sense in our explainer on what a loyalty programme is.

What it costs and what it delivers

Ahold Delhaize's financial reports don't show a separate return figure for SuperPlus. That's normal. Retailers almost always book loyalty under marketing and commercial costs, not as a separate line in the annual report. So there's no public ROI for this programme, and I'm not going to invent one. What you can calculate is the base reward: 5 euros per 500 points, so per 1,000 euros of groceries. That's half a percent back. The real value for the customer sits in the e-Deals and discounts, not in the points themselves.

How a programme like this creates value has been studied well, though. Benefits from the programme improve the relationship with the customer, and through that relationship, loyalty to the store grows. That's the finding of research into loyalty program benefits and relationship quality. The meta-analysis 40 years of loyalty programs (Belli et al., 2022) draws a distinction any CMO can use: programmes mainly boost repeat purchases (behavioural loyalty) and much less brand preference (attitudinal loyalty). With a programme, you're mainly buying behaviour.

The third point comes from the UK. There, 97% of regular supermarket shoppers belong to at least one supermarket programme. Yet 40% don't trust that the member price is actually a saving, according to research by NatCen commissioned by the UK's CMA. Personal discounts don't make that easier. Test-Aankoop points out that discounts tied to your own purchase history make price comparison harder with SuperPlus. Any programme built on personalisation runs into this. Delhaize is no exception here.

An estimate, not hard data: Delhaize has hundreds of stores in Belgium and the basic card is free and open to everyone. The costs almost certainly sit within the chain's regular IT and marketing budget. We look at this differently. A loyalty programme isn't a cost item to us, it's a growth engine. It needs to demonstrably drive extra revenue and margin, through more visits, bigger baskets and campaigns run together with brand suppliers. That's what we steer towards with our clients from launch.

Where SuperPlus is strong

The first thing I'd copy is the low barrier to entry. Signing up is free and quick, in the app or at the till. The less friction, the more members. And the more members you have, the more data you have to tailor offers with. That data is ultimately what makes a programme smart.

Also good: personalisation is the core of the programme, not a layer bolted on later. The personal e-Deals are the reason to open the app, and Delhaize links discounts cleverly to healthy choices via the Nutri-Score. This study on trust, satisfaction and loyalty shows that personalised recommendations strengthen the step from trust to satisfaction to loyalty. Delhaize clearly leans on that.

The third strong point is often underrated. The app is more than a loyalty card. Anyone who orders groceries through it or checks a product's Nutri-Score opens it even when there's no offer to grab. And every time someone opens the app, you get a chance to show them a personal offer.

Where it falls short

Look at what's technically possible today, and four things stand out.

First, there's little game in the programme. You collect points and get discounts, but I don't see challenges, milestones or other playful elements. For a supermarket that's a missed opportunity, because a challenge like "buy fresh vegetables four times this month" ties directly into visit frequency. The study The Impact of Gamification and Customer Engagement in Loyalty Programs on Repeat Purchase Behavior makes that link to repeat purchases explicit. Delhaize is leaving something on the table here.

Second, the best customers get little recognition. A family spending 200 euros a week at Delhaize gets personal e-Deals, but no status. Recognition at SuperPlus is something you buy with a subscription, not something you earn through loyalty. One tier with something exclusive for the most loyal customers, alongside the paid formulas, would strengthen that bond. You can see how other chains handle this in our overview of retail loyalty programmes with a clear structure.

The third point weighs heaviest for me: the app itself. A few complaints recur in the reviews. The app doesn't always open in stores with poor signal, and it loads slowly. Picture what that means at the till. The queue behind you grows, you want to scan your card, and the app just hangs. Right at the moment the reward should land, the programme loses the trust it's supposed to build. Delhaize itself says, in replies to reviews, that it's working on better offline functionality.

Finally, customers aren't always clear on why they get one particular e-Deal and not another, or why their discount differs from their neighbour's. Test-Aankoop is critical of that, as well as of how much data Delhaize collects for the card. NatCen found similar distrust in the UK.

To be fair, the reviews aren't all negative. On the App Store it averages 4.5 out of 5, and customers find it handy for the weekly shop. The complaints are mostly about technical issues and lack of clarity, rarely about the value of the programme itself. That's telling, I think. Personalisation only works if it feels transparent to the customer. Without that transparency, you get the same trust gap NatCen describes.

SuperPlus next to a modern platform

I don't mean this as criticism of Delhaize. The programme has run for years and Delhaize does keep renewing it, look at the paid formulas. But the table does show how much room there is for a retailer starting fresh or refreshing its programme today.

What to copy, and what to do better

A good programme doesn't start with budget, it starts with a few clear choices. Start with the barrier to entry, because Delhaize gets that right. Free to join and fast onboarding works. When people sign up, don't ask for more than a name and an email address. That also helps with trust, since the sheer amount of data requested is exactly where Delhaize gets criticised.

Make personalisation the heart of the programme and tell customers why they're getting a particular offer. A line like "because you often buy coffee" already prevents much of the confusion you read in the reviews. Then go a step further than Delhaize: with NeoD.ai you put together the offer that delivers the most for that customer at that moment, for the customer and for your margin. This systematic review of AI personalisation confirms that AI-driven offers increase satisfaction and loyalty.

Gamification is where you can go beyond Delhaize. Keep it small: 3 to 5 types of challenges, with a few active per customer at a time. That keeps it manageable and keeps motivation up. More isn't better. This study on non-linear motivation effects shows that too much or too complex gamification backfires.

A status tier doesn't need to be heavy-handed. Early access to promotions or an extra perk for your most loyal customers already strengthens the relationship. Want to go further, Bravo shows that a supermarket can run multiple tiers well too, as long as you reassess status regularly. A paid tier like SuperPlus Families can sit comfortably alongside that. One customer pays for the benefit, another earns it through loyalty.

Above all, don't let IT become the brake. Roll the programme out in phases, check progress weekly, and connect to your existing till system through an API. That way loyalty doesn't turn into a multi-year IT project.

At NeoDay we work with retailers running anywhere from 50 to 5,000 stores, and what I hear consistently: they want a programme that pays for itself, not a years-long IT project. That shapes how we work too. We think along as an entrepreneur would, about which campaign delivers extra revenue or margin this month, and we let the data do the work. With hyper-personalisation through NeoD.ai and gamification built in as standard, you get the core strengths of SuperPlus, with more room to grow. You choose whether it's your own app, a web experience, or built into your existing app via an SDK.

For how other chains approach this, see our overview of loyalty programme examples across different industries. For food retail specifically, our piece on customer retention and why it matters is also worth a look. Also check the restaurant examples: QSR chains and supermarkets run on the same two levers, visit frequency and basket size.

FAQ about SuperPlus and the My Delhaize app

How exactly does SuperPlus work?

You earn 1 point per 2 euros, in store and online. 500 points gets you a 5 euro purchase voucher. You also get personal weekly e-Deals based on your purchase behaviour, and activating those earns extra points.

Does SuperPlus have tiers or levels?

Not in the sense of bronze, silver or gold earned through spending. There are paid formulas though: SuperPlus Families (12 euros a year) and SuperPlus Delivery (120 euros a year), with extra discounts and delivery perks. Until October 2022, SuperPlus did have levels based on monthly spend, with 5, 10 or 15 percent off healthy products.

Is the My Delhaize app required to join SuperPlus?

No, you can also collect points with a physical card. The app does give the best overview of your points and e-Deals, and you can also order your groceries through it.

What does SuperPlus cost, and what does it earn Delhaize?

The basic card is free. Families and Delivery cost 12 and 120 euros a year respectively. Delhaize doesn't publish a separate return figure for the programme, so there are no public ROI numbers.

What are the biggest complaints about the My Delhaize app?

In reviews, users mainly mention that the app doesn't always open with poor in-store signal, and that it loads slowly. It's also not always clear why offers differ per customer. Test-Aankoop is also critical of how much data Delhaize collects.

How quickly can you launch a similar programme yourself?

With a modern, API-first platform, a programme typically goes live in around ten weeks, depending on the connection to your till system. Speed matters less than what it delivers afterwards, though. Steer towards extra revenue and margin from day one, not just member numbers.

Can a programme like this work with a paid membership too?

Yes, Delhaize itself does it with SuperPlus Families and Delivery. A paid tier can boost retention, because members want to earn back their subscription. The value needs to feel immediate, though. Delhaize even offered a guarantee in the first year: save less than the subscription cost, and you got the difference back.

Sources: Loyalty program benefits and relationship quality, 40 years of loyalty programs, Attitudes Towards Supermarket Loyalty Pricing (NatCen), The Impact of Gamification and Customer Engagement in Loyalty Programs on Repeat Purchase Behavior, Is gamification always beneficial?, The moderating role of personalized recommendations in trust-satisfaction-loyalty, AI-Driven Personalization and Customer Engagement: A PRISMA-Guided Systematic Review, Brussels Times - SuperPlus change 2022

More questions about retail loyalty? Find the answers in our loyalty FAQ.