Dutch supermarket giant Albert Heijn will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products six months before a national ban comes into effect.
From July 2024, tobacco products can only be purchased from gas stations and tobacco shops. As of 2030, that will be further limited to just tobacco shops. With these steps, the government wants to discourage smoking as much as possible.
However, Albert Heijn has made the decision to implement the ban half a year early — and also extend it to vape products. The chain already stopped selling the products online in July 2023.
According to the supermarket, they want to encourage shoppers to live a healthier lifestyle. That’s a nice step — but can they quit with the plastic packaging too?
A good start
If you see cigarettes in your local store still on January 1, don’t stress. Some Albert Heijns are independently owned as part of a franchise. The owners can choose whether to stop selling in January or wait until July.
Surprisingly, this is not the first supermarket in the Netherlands to take the steps. German-owned Lidl also stopped selling cigarettes in Dutch stores in 2021.
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