Colruyt is starting to sell emergency food packs designed to enable people to be self-sufficient for 24 hours, the supermarket chain has announced.
The emergency packs – which the company itself refers to as "basic packs" – will be on the shelves of around 80 Colruyt stores from Tuesday on. The company said this is in response to customer demand and government advice.
The basic pack contains food, tissues, a spoon and equipment for heating food. "The pack is similar to the emergency pack previously launched by the Red Cross. They focus mainly on first aid, whilst we focus on food," a Colruyt spokeswoman said.
Specifically, the pack contains 3,100 calories in the form of muesli, energy bars, nuts, two meals, isotonic drink powder, coffee sticks, chewing gum, tissues, a spoon and a pouch for reheating food.
The aim is for people to be self-sufficient for 24 hours with the kit. "There are circumstances where it proves useful to be able to carry on completely independently; just think of the floods in Wallonia in the summer of 2021 or, more recently, the two-week gas outage in Mons. But also power cuts that last longer than hoped or occur at an inconvenient time. As a Belgian retailer, we want to meet our customers' needs, which is why we are launching the basic kit today," explains Geert Elen of Colruyt.
The product is now sold for €29.99 and is on a trial period. If demand is high, the company is considering making the packages available in all stores.
