Netherlands’ supermarket chain Albert Heijn will no longer sell cigarettes and other tobacco products beginning Jan. 1, 2024, according to NL Times.
“Albert Heijn supports the movement toward a smoke-free generation,” the company wrote in a press release. “In order to achieve lasting behavioral change and a smoke-free generation, it is important that all selling parties and other players involved, large and small, work together on this. The Dutch government has announced that tobacco sales will stop at supermarkets as of July 1, 2024, and is preparing legislation for this. Albert Heijn will stop selling tobacco and related products in stores as of Jan. 1, 2024. Online sales have stopped since July 1, 2023.”
Last year, supermarkets were ordered to stop publicly displaying tobacco products. Kruidvat stopped selling cigarettes in 2018 followed by Lidl later that year.