Share Watch: Dutch-Belgian food retailer Ahold can be comeback kid

The headquarters of the merged supermarket group Ahold Delhaize in Zaandam. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

John Lynch

Shopping used to be simple. However these days even Euclid would have a problem understanding the puzzling complexities of a business that still hasn't quite worked out what change the internet has created for it.

It worries too about what technology challenges await. Grocers in these islands have tried to deal with the Continental discounters like a nervous jockey taking on Becher's Brook and investors have suffered an almost daily recitation of woes as dividend payments come under threat.