Bringing comfort and convenience to the colonial table: Delhaize Frères & Cie's Colonial Department in the 1920s and 1930s.

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Bringing comfort and convenience to the colonial table: Delhaize Frères & Cie’s Colonial Department in the 1920s and 1930s Nelleke Teughels * Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders, Social and Cultural Food Studies (FOST), History Department, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, Brussels BE-1050, Belgium

A R T I C L E

I N F O

Article history: Received 14 November 2014 Received in revised form 16 March 2015 Accepted 3 April 2015 Available online Keywords: Food retailing The Belgian Congo Convenience shopping Advertising

A B S T R A C T

The paper explores the role of convenient shopping in establishing a sense of comfort for Europeans in a colonial environment. So far, there has been little investigation into how Belgian retailers tried to gain a firm foothold in the Congo, how they presented themselves and promoted their wares. This paper examines the activities of the colonial department of Delhaize Frères & Cie ‘Le Lion’, Belgium’s first and largest food multiple. It examines how this large grocery chain tried to establish itself in the Congo, what motivations it had to extend its business to the colony, what audience it wished to reach, what products and services it had to offer and what sales and marketing strategies were used. It appears that convenient shopping was one of the key selling points Delhaize’s advertising, while also characterising its products as indispensable for Europeans’ comfort, moral respectability and homely warmth in a socalled primitive, backward environment. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction In 1908, Belgium took over the Congo Free State from its owner, king Leopold II. Since that year, Belgians became increasingly involved, both physically and ideologically, in the colony (Stanard, 2011, p. 6). Small and big companies were established, large infrastructure works started, the Catholic Church built hospitals, churches and schools, while a Belgian administration was put up. All this led to a growing presence of Belgians in the Congo, from 3610 in 1920 to 17,700 in 1930 and 24,000 in 1947 (Vanthemsche, 2012, p. 279) and the development of a colonial culture in Belgium (Stanard, 2011, pp. 6–8; p. 15). This colonisation was accompanied by ardent ideological campaigns in Belgium, which appeared, among others, in the way the Congo was presented at Universal and Colonial Exhibitions throughout the world. At these events, Belgium not only attempted to erase the controversies surrounding Leopold II, but also to create a cult in which the former owner of the Congo was portrayed as a visionary man. As Stanard (2011, pp. 49–50) puts it; “that is how Belgians discounted the violence of Leopold II’s rule in the Congo and re-created themselves as benevolent and righteous rulers in central Africa.” Colonial propaganda was characterised by the presentation of ‘our colony’, as a collective project in which each Belgian citizen partook. The Belgian population could be rightfully proud of their country and of the civilisation and prosperity they had brought to Central Africa (Stanard, 2011, p. 15; pp. 47–88;

* E-mail address: [email protected].

Verschaffel, 2009). Both the civilising mission and glorification of the Belgian monarchy were tied to the economic importance of the Congo for Belgian industry and commerce. The State constantly emphasised the possibilities the colony had to offer both as a supplier of natural resources and as an enormous potential outlet, aspiring to intertwine Belgian and colonial economies (Burke, 2012, p. 471; Guldentops, 2009). With the onset of the economic depression in the 1930s the attempts by the Belgian government to further colonial production and import of raw materials and the export to the Congo of national finished products intensified. Not only was the Congo identified as crucial to the restoration of Belgian prosperity, the Ministry of Colonies also desired to nationalise colonial import and export to exclude non-Belgian influence as much as possible (Stanard 2012, pp. 77–82). This discourse efficiently contrasted Belgian civilisation with colonial ‘backwardness’, discarding the significance of indigenous economy and the already existing links to global economic networks (Burke, 2012, p. 471; Stanard 2012, p. 88). One of the sectors that were depicted as providing ample opportunity for ambitious businessmen was the retail sector, and food retailing in particular. By the 1920s the Congo could depend on a more or less regular distribution network that tended towards price convergence throughout the country. However, the trading posts of which this network comprised could not be compared to modern European distribution systems. These posts often combined various activities, simultaneously serving as shop, customs and government headquarters, with retailing being only one of their activities (and, allegedly, failing to provide regular supply). Moreover, because of the large number of intermediaries, huge distances and difficult road conditions, price differences between the Congo and Belgium

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2015.04.007 0195-6663/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Nelleke Teughels, Bringing comfort and convenience to the colonial table: Delhaize Frères & Cie’s Colonial Department in the 1920s and 1930s, Appetite (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2015.04.007

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and within the colony were often very pronounced (Buelens, 2007). This left room for improvement, and a number of Belgian food manufacturers and retailers decided to try their luck in the Congo. The financial-economic history of the Belgian colony and the companies who were active there has been thoroughly addressed by Buelens (2007). His study comprises a network analysis of Belgian– Congolese companies, financial groups, holdings and trusts and identifies the main protagonists and their interconnections. However, how these Belgian organisations tried to gain a firm foothold in the Congo, how they presented themselves and promoted their wares has yet to be investigated. As for most colonial societies, the merchants, retailing and material culture of the Congo before 1960 remain an underexplored area of study (Burke, 2012, p. 471). This article endeavours to begin this work by analysing the activities of the colonial department of Delhaize Frères & Cie ‘Le Lion’. It examines how this large grocery chain, with its dense network of shops scattered all over Belgium and neighbouring Luxemburg, established itself in the Congo, what motivations it had to extend its business to the colony, what audience it wished to reach, what products and services it had to offer and what sales and marketing strategies it used, the latter with particular attention to convenient shopping and convenience foods. Delhaize’s selfrepresentation inevitably reflected, propagated and reinforced social values, norms and sensibilities, which can lend insight into the company’s views and aspirations, but also into broader societal tendencies, like political agendas, or the importance and appeal of convenience shopping and convenience food. Moreover, this paper provides additional information about how products and ingredients from the colony, local population and culture were portrayed and perceived, as opposed to the fatherland and its food production. It also considers questions regarding food preservation and food safety, and can lend insight into the adoption or rejection of certain aspects of modernity and technological innovation. In the following pages, I will argue that Delhaize seconded the State’s vision of consumer goods as “an instrument of empire” (Burke, 2012, p. 470). The colony was presented as a collective project of civilisation to which Belgian consumers and colonials could contribute through consumption. However, even though the Ministry of Colonies stressed the enormous potential of the Congo as new markets for manufactured goods, Delhaize’s advertising campaigns never directly addressed the indigenous population, focusing solely on colonials and their family members in the motherland. This is consistent with what according to Burke (2012, p. 471) occurred in many of Europe’s new colonial territories, where the development of local consumption was severely thwarted by active state policies to ensure sufficient supplies of labour at low wages. Moreover, I will argue that the discourse and iconography used by Delhaize to promote its colonial department and parcels resonated with interwar middle class discourse and social elite’s and civil society organisations’ initiatives to promote middle class values like thrift, hygiene, convenience, and functionality and conventional views on respectability. The initiatives originated in the middle of the 19th century but gained in number and influence during the 1920s and 1930s, when interest groups and social organisations acquired increasing political weight. Housing, housekeeping and the breadwinner-homemaker ideal were central themes to this civilisation campaign, which originated partly in fear of social unrest and moral degeneration. In this paper, I will demonstrate how Delhaize’s advertising framed the comfort and convenience offered by the company’s service and products within middle class views on respectability. Sources and methodology The results presented in this paper are based on the analysis of a variety of iconographical sources documenting and illustrating

Delhaize’s activities in and views on the Congo from 1926 until the end of the 1930s, the majority of which are kept in the Delhaize Group archives. Additional iconographical material was found in the Royal Archives and in the iconographical collection of Dexia Bank. The images analysed in this paper include photographs of Delhaize’s participation in colonial and universal exhibitions, some of which were also reproduced in advertising brochures, newspaper ads and internal reports. In addition, the Delhaize Group archives contain photographs of visits by company representatives to the Congo, showing not only various stages in the distribution process in the colony, but also how they were supposedly accommodated. The company also produced advertising images promoting its colonial service and parcels. All of these images lend insight into the nature of the products and services Delhaize wished to offer and for what audience, how the retailer motivated and marketed his colonial activities, but also into the company’s views and aspirations. The latter can be linked to broader societal tendencies and ideologies by analysing how they reflected, spread and reinforced certain values, norms and sensibilities. The information collected from the visual sources was compared to and complemented with the data supplied by written and printed archival sources, namely internal reports, publicity material, company brochures and official accounts of Delhaize’s participation in colonial and world exhibitions. Delhaize’s colonial activities took off around the middle of the 1920s. However, since its colonial department was only established in 1928, most written and iconographical documents date from the late 1920s and the 1930s. The images were analysed using a qualitative approach, combining an iconographic1 and a social semiotic analysis.2 Iconography focuses on denotation, connotation and the iconological symbolism of the individual elements within a visual representation (Panofsky, 1972). Social semiotics, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with the spatial relationships between those individual elements and the way in which these generate meaning. Rooted in principles of semiotics, semiology and critical discourse analysis, social semiotics examines signifiers and how they are used to create meaning. However, its conception of the sign differs from that of semiology. Therefore, social semioticians prefer to use the term semiotic resource. The term encompasses all actions, utterances, structures, styles and objects we use to communicate. The potential of semiotic resources is constrained by the manners in which they were applied in the past and of which are familiar to the user and by his specific needs and intentions (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 9). These needs and intentions depend on the subjectivity of the user, but are also greatly determined by social and historical context. Social semioticians consider all semiosis as social action embedded in larger economic and cultural practices and power relations, which are normative systems expressing and reinforcing the ideological discourses and attitudes of the dominant social group(s) (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996, pp. 12–13; van Leeuwen, 2005, pp. 47–57). Therefore, the historical and local context, colonial propaganda, the board of directors’ ideology and societal and technological evolutions would have had a visible impact on the semiotic resources that were used in Delhaize’s advertising.

1 For a more detailed account of this approach, see Panofsky (1972). Studies in iconology: Humanistic themes in the art of the renaissance, New York. 2 For a more detailed overview of this approach, see Hodge and Kress (1988). Social semiotics, Cambridge; Kress and van Leeuwen (1996). Reading images. The grammar of visual design, London; Kress and van Leeuwen (2001). Multimodal Discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication, London.



Fig. 1. View on the colonial department in the central warehouse of Delhaize in SintJans-Molenbeek (Brussels), c. 1931.

Colonials! Demand the products of Delhaize ‘Le Lion’ at your table3 In the two decades preceding the First World War, Delhaize Frères & Cie ‘Le Lion’, founded in 1867, started exporting products from its brush manufactory and chocolate factory to a growing number of countries throughout the world. In 1927, the managing director of Delhaize held the presidency of one of the ‘colonial fortnights’, which were held every year between 1925 and 1937 by the Ministry of Colonies. The theme of this edition was ‘food products of interest to the colony’. Photographs of Delhaize’s participation show that the company at the time shipped a sizeable proportion of its product range to the Congo. The wares were packaged in cases Delhaize bought from the Caisserie Emile Van Doren and shipped through the port of Antwerp. One year later, the company had established a colonial department at its Brussels warehouse (Fig. 1). From then on, the preparation, packaging and forwarding of products considered fit for consumption in the tropical climate of the Congo were all conducted in-house. The parcels were exported to the Belgian Congo with the help of a trade representative. They comprised both brand products and goods made in one of the 25 Delhaize factories, packaged in tin, zinc or wooden cases, depending on the merchandise. The advertising brochures explicitly mention biscuits, spiced cake, chocolate, cacao, eau-de-Cologne, toiletries and liquors as of interest to the colonials. Yet, photographs of the colonial department reveal that, in fact, the range of products available for order to the customers in the Congo was much broader, including canned food, detergents, household items and even cheese. A 1930 leaflet assures them that, aside from the products mentioned above, they could have delivered ‘all other food and domestic products’ (Delhaize, 1930). Individual packaging, according to the company, was adapted to the tropical climate and the needs of transportation. Despite Delhaize’s claims about the extent of the range of products available for shipment to the colony, these two factors probably also influenced the actual product offer (Delhaize, 1932, 1936). In its annual report of 1935–1936, the food multiple described the colonial department as an excellent publicity instrument, both in Belgium and the Congo. After all, not only would it appeal to the growing number of its Belgian customers with relatives in the colony, the colonial parcels would also spread the name and fame of Delhaize

3

Translations are from French. All translations in this article are mine.

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products and service to the Belgian Congo and maybe even beyond (Delhaize, 1936). Moreover, although this is not explicitly mentioned, it was yet again a way for Delhaize to forge strong national sentiments with regard to Belgium, to which it was very favourably disposed since its foundation in 1867 (Teughels, 2014, pp. 102–113). When in 1875 the company, after a rapid increase in the number of outlets, saw the need for an own brand and shop sign, it very deliberately chose a logo that strongly resembled the Belgian heraldic lion. The Belgian motto ‘Unity makes strength’ was equally included in the signboard, and perfectly captured the company philosophy: a strong faith in the power of the individual to generate (social) change and progress. This idea was based on the mechanisms of the free market and individual interest. Out of selfinterest the individual would put himself at the service of the whole. The company’s emblem expressed, but, from a commercial viewpoint, also played into these nationalist sentiments. This allowed Delhaize to present itself as a Belgian company selling Belgian products, and therefore shopping at Delhaize could be seen as an act of patriotism. Likewise, from 1926 onwards, Delhaize issued special brochures to promote the company’s colonial enterprise and wares, and newspaper advertisements in national and regional papers proclaimed its excellent qualities. It regularly dedicated shop window and exhibition displays to the promotion of Delhaize foodstuffs made with resources from the Congo, asking passers-by to consume products from the colonies. In doing so, customers would support their country and contribute to the economic development and prosperity of the colony and its inhabitants. Their grocery shopping could help bring civilisation to this ‘backward’ African region, as did Delhaize’s colonial products and department. In addition, Delhaize did not miss an opportunity to promote and publicise its colonial department and its activities overseas at various fairs and exhibitions. Analysing the exhibition displays shows that Delhaize’s publicity for the goods and services provided by the colonial department was built on presumed antinomies between the Congo and the fatherland: the African colony was characterised in terms of backwardness and primitiveness, a lack of civilisation and modernity, that were seen as inherent to European culture and society (Teughels, 2014, pp. 228–235). This discourse was visually articulated in the diorama’s Delhaize presented at the Belgian Food Fair in 1932, and which were based on photographs, taken by Delhaize’s agents in the Congo. Figure 2 shows one of these evocations of life as a colonial in the Congo. The African landscape is typified here as a wilderness, with inhospitable plains and dense, hardly accessible forests. The black man, kneeling next to one of the Delhaize crates that have arrived in this far-off place, is wearing rudimentary clothing

Fig. 2. Diorama Dans la Brousse KASAÏ, Delhaize exhibit at the Brussels Food Fair, 1932.


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and no shoes. In the background stands a small hut made of branches and dried grasses. One of the woven fences of the structure seems to have collapsed, suggesting its unreliable, primitive character. Literally taking centre stage are two colonials, wearing meticulously clean light-coloured outfits and surveying the black man who is kneeling in front of them, unpacking the crate. From it emerge sturdy yet appealingly packaged modern food products. Pictures show that a substantial number of food products sent to the Congo by Delhaize were what we could call convenience foods: canned goods, pickled fruits and vegetables and ready-to-eat prepared foods like cassoulet (a type of slow-cooked casserole) and ratatouille. Of course, the use of canned foods had grown in popularity in Europe during the interwar period and home preservation was no longer seen as preferable because of its time-consuming and expensive nature (see Verriet’s contribution in this volume). Yet in the context of the Congo, canned and prepared foods became an even more convenient choice, since a lot of the fresh ingredients for ‘standard’ Belgian home cooking would be hard to come by and equally hard to keep well for sufficient time. Thus, even in the Congolese outback, devoid of standard modern facilities and full of flavours that did not sit easily with the European palate, Delhaize offered its customers stressfree convenience shopping: with no more effort than simply placing your order by mail, the desired, safe and familiar goods be delivered to you fast and in mint condition. The whole scene suggests that life in the colony would be bereft of comfort if not for the modern products and techniques imported by the Belgians – with Delhaize products as an ideal example. The picture testifies to Delhaize’s ability of bringing European foodstuffs to the remotest place, thus creating feelings of home for the colonials. In the following diorama (Fig. 3), the visitors of the fair were presented with some of the results of the ‘good works’ by the colonials: the same white woman and man from the previous scene were now sitting in comfortable chairs, one furnished with pillows, and around a table dressed with a tablecloth. A small dog had nestled itself in the woman’s lap, while the man was pouring glasses of Delhaize’s Lambic Gueuze. The whole spectacle bathed in a homely atmosphere and promoted traditional family values and related notions of respectability. The white man was not alone in this wilderness; he enjoyed the company of his wife who supported her husband in his civilising mission. Her presence in the dioramas can be seen as an expression of the traditional view that women fulfil a stabilising role in society, by providing her family with much needed serenity and comfort, wherever their home might be (DeVault, 1991; Tilly

Fig. 3. Diorama Dans la Brousse KASAÏ, Delhaize exhibit at the Brussels Food Fair, 1932.

& Scott, 1987). Delhaize offered her help with this difficult and timeconsuming task by offering convenient, mail order shopping and a timely delivery of safe, easy to prepare and familiar foods. In this setting, the chairs in the second diorama symbolised the civilisation the Belgians had brought: in a civilised society, people do not sit on the ground. Moreover, the primitive hut had made way for a spacious, comfortable and modern European-style home. The triad of man, woman and dog can be regarded as a reflection of the conviction that the nuclear family was the most important building block of a stable society. The family thus becomes a representation of respectability, whereby the woman would stimulate the virtuousness of her family members by her inherent generosity, tenderness and care (the latter captured by the fact that she provided her husband with Belgian beer, supplied by Delhaize). It is precisely for this reason the government, after the First World War, actively encouraged (white) Belgian women to travel to the Congo, convinced that their presence would have a positive impact on the morality of the white colonials (Hill, 2012; Lagae, 2005). The indigenous people of the Congo also benefited greatly from the Belgian presence in their country, the scene seemed to indicate. Instead of the ‘primitive’ clothing that enveloped them in the previous diorama, the Congolese now wore Western apparel. However, they were not portrayed as equals to the colonials: their ‘wild nature’ prevailed, as was suggested by their unshod feet. In addition, their bent posture accentuated the men’s subordinate position and their inferiority. This was a widespread typification of the African continent and its inhabitants in Western iconography (Nederveen-Pieterse, 1992), which probably would have led the audience to perceive it as an objective rendition of life in the colony. The main message they should remember from the dioramas was that the familiar, trusted and high quality Delhaize grocery products were indispensable to the colonials, bringers of progress, for a comfortable life in the African bush. The black population in the Congo could only bow down its head low with humility before so much modernity and convenience. ‘Near like a discreet shadow’ From 1928 onwards, the company started to play out the Congolese points of sale of Delhaize products in advertising leaflets and newspaper ads. These emphasised that the Belgian population in the Congo could just as easily obtain their supplies from Delhaize as they could in their homeland. Often they would include a map of the Congo, with dots indicating the communities regularly supplied with Delhaize products. These suggested that Delhaize was always (relatively) close-by, “near like a discreet shadow, who goes wherever you go”, to use Delhaize’s own words (Delhaize, 1935). In the context of the Congo, with its still rather limited distribution network, the argument of convenience in acquisition, limiting the time and effort used to provide oneself with high quality and safe products, probably was a convincing one. Both visually and wordily, the company presented these points of sale as barely distinguishable from their counterparts in Belgium. The catalogue from the in-house printing department contains a black-and-white print cliché from 1928 presenting the consumer with two photographs of a tidy shop interior, similar to those of the Belgian branches. All the shelves seemed to be filled with Delhaize brand products. Inserted in the middle of the ad was a photograph of five Congolese men, dressed in Western fashion and posing in front of a shop. They were surrounded by Delhaize foodstuffs and household items waiting to be carried inside under the watchful eye of the female shopkeeper now standing in the doorway. The text accompanying the photographs was equally suggestive. Whoever read the small print, however, learned that Delhaize products were distributed in the Congo by trading posts, which also sold goods from other distributors and manufacturers:



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“A Delhaize Fres & Cie ‘Le Lion’ branch in Belgium? No! A factory in the Belgian Congo supplied with products by

DELHAIZE Fres & Cie ‘LE LION’” [Small print and use of capital letters in the original] One of the publicity images in which this suggestion was exploited to the full was a drawing by Georges Prosper Remi, better known as Hergé (1907–1983), who worked on a regular basis for Delhaize’s publicity department at the end of the 1920s. It depicted a colonial who, shopping bag loosely in hand, walked in the direction of a Delhaize branch, easily recognisable by the signboard and plaster lion that adorned the façade. The shop arose in the distance, in the middle of a wasteland, a vast empty space except for three lonely palm trees. Thus it was portrayed as a spring in the desert, as a fata morgana of all the things the traveller, a long way from home and in an environment full of ordeals, craved the most. Yet, although all of the surviving publicity mentions in small print that Delhaize products are sold through trading posts (Delhaize, 1932), there may have been some truth to the suggestive images like that of Hergé. There is clear evidence that by 1931, the company had at least two real Delhaize branches in the Congo. Photographs kept in the Delhaize Group archives show the exterior of one Delhaize Fres & Cie ‘Le Lion’ shop (see Fig. 4) and the interiors of the same (Fig. 5), and yet another Congolese Delhaize shop. From the outside (Fig. 4), this Congolese branch bared little likeness to its Belgian counterparts. The building housing the shop was a bungalow in colonial art deco style, with a modest front porch. The three large double doors that led out to the porch were curtained to keep out sun and heat. Whereas in the homeland, Delhaize pulled out all the stops to lure passers-by into its shops, here they had limited the investments in the façade to the familiar signboard. There were no shop windows and the signature lion was nowhere to be seen. A possible explanation for this is linked to the specific context in which the colonial found himself. First of all, the lack of shop windows can easily be explained by the need to keep the tropical heat outside. But another factor possibly had an impact on the shop exterior. Far away from home and hearth, this new environment offered little guidance in the form of conventions or rituals, which could lead to a feeling of displacement (Lagae, 2005). Although architecture certainly can create a familiar setting and a sense of security, it was much more interesting for Delhaize, especially financially, to emphasise how its products could bring comfort

Fig. 4. Exterior of a Delhaize branch in Congo (exact location unknown), 1931.

Fig. 5. Interior of a Delhaize branch in Congo (exact location unknown), 1931.

and homely warmth to the Congo instead of investing in both the number and the appearance of its Congolese points of sale. From the annual reports of the 1920s speaks a strong belief in the quality of the Delhaize factory products and the appeal of their reasonable price (Teughels, 2014, pp. 239–240). As a result, the company’s publicity images and discourse highlight the comfort of both the availability of the familiar and reputed Delhaize foodstuffs and household items and the convenience of Delhaize’s fast and efficient service. Delhaize promised to bring its Congolese customers a sense and a taste of home and childhood memories, playing into feelings of nostalgia: “Why don’t you try Delhaize ‘Le Lion’s products? They are delivered to you… Their presence in the Colony is the evocation in your small dwelling or bungalow of your childhood family table, … a new affirmation of the convergence of interests of the home country and the Colony” (Delhaize, 1930). This commitment was even more clearly expressed in a blackand-white reproduction from a cliché dating from the early 1930s (Fig. 6), which drew a visual equation between the cosy and lavish Christmas dinner in Belgium enjoyed by a father, mother and two children and a meal among friends in the exotic Belgian colony prepared with Delhaize products. The interior of the colonial branches as portrayed in the photographs, however, did resemble the Belgian Delhaize shops. Of course they could not be compared to the most luxurious Delhaize branches in Brussels, yet the shops in the Congo were characterised by a spotless interior and a maximum of transparency and airiness. Massive volumes were avoided as much as possible by making extensive use of open wall units and display cases. The food products on display were the same trustworthy products as customers had known in their Belgian hometown, offering a welcome alternative to the exotic or even mistrusted flavours on sale at the local markets and shops. As many items as possible were brought within the field of vision and even within reach of the customers. On the counter stood a glass étagère for displaying products sensitive to contamination or draught, whereas wines were presented and stored horizontally in special racks. The tropical climate will not have allowed for a presentation of wares identical to those in Belgian shops; delicate products like cheese and pastry would spoil more easily when exhibited in a glass display case. There is no information on the complete range of products available to the colonials in these shops, but it is highly likely that it was much less extensive for the same reason and possibly also due to the limitations


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same shopkeeper, and thus owned by Delhaize? Or did both shops exist in some sort of symbiosis, in which they both benefitted from the customers the other one attracted? There probably would be little overlap between each shop’s offer of goods on sale. Unfortunately, the Delhaize Group archives did not contain any documents which could clarify this matter, limiting our knowledge about Delhaize’s points of sale in the Congo and their local clientele. Tempered ambitions

Fig. 6. A black-and-white reproduction from a cliché dating from the early 1930s.

imposed by transportation. Indeed, Delhaize’s advertising brochures and newspaper ads clearly indicate that the company took full account of the impact of the Congolese climate on the quality and storage life of certain foodstuffs and of the different dietary requirements when putting together its colonial parcels. The captions written on two of the photographs of the shop interiors raise interesting questions about the types of clients the multiple wished to attract. At the bottom of the photograph reproduced in Fig. 5 was written: ‘View of the right side of the shop p’Europeans’ [sic]. A second view of the same branch, taken from a different angle, was described as a ‘View of the indigenous shop’. The photograph shows how both were housed in the same space, only visually separated by a simple arcade. The ‘indigenous shop’ seemed to specialise in household items and linens. In the photograph it looks rather messy, with textiles hanging from the ceiling and cloths and suitcases piled up on tables and shelves. Since we have only the photographs to go by, it is hard to make inferences about how both shops relate to each other. Moreover, it is unknown who added the captions and when, which further complicates things. What is meant exactly with the description ‘indigenous shop’? What customer base did it want to serve? Was it aimed at the local, indigenous population? This would mean Delhaize tried to respond to local demand by the colonised population for imported consumer goods, a demand that, according to Burke (2012, p. 471), to a certain degree already existed in most colonies in the 19th and early 20th centuries. However, none of the archival records remaining ever mention the indigenous population as a potential market for Delhaize’s services or products. An alternative explanation is that the shop sold indigenous products. This seems more likely, considering there is a placard displayed in the shop which greeted visitors with the opening ‘Colonials’. Were both shops run by the

The economic crisis of the 1930s in Europe and the United States also affected the commercial markets of the Belgian Congo. Delhaize was forced to postpone the further expansion of its colonial department and services for an indefinite period. When the company lost an important commercial agent for its base in Costermansville in 1936, the board of directors deemed the risks connected to larger investments too great. Organising sales in the Congo by intervention of colonial companies located in Belgium was not an option, according to the board. On the one hand, this would lead to small return of investment. On the other hand, according to Delhaize, most colonial companies refused to promote their Delhaize brand products in the Congo, fearing competition for their own merchandise (Delhaize, 1937). So, this scenario would not offer the company any advantage, neither in financial terms, nor in terms of brand awareness. Cooperation with independent traders in Africa was equally rejected. The credit Delhaize needed to offer them, posed too high a risk. Finally the board of directors decided to keep Delhaize’s colonial business small-scale for a while. This meant accepting only cash payment and selling only to individual customers and a handful of local retailers they considered sufficiently reliable. As a result, publicity for Delhaize’s colonial service was still aimed at consumers in Belgium who wished to provide their loved ones in the Congo with good quality, familiar products. It was also by appealing to their families and friends in the homeland that the multiple wished to spread its reputation among the colonials, which in turn would lead to an increase in orders. Colonial exhibitions and the Brussels World’s Fair of 1935 were perfect opportunities to make the Delhaize brands and colonial services (inter)nationally more visible and to highlight the quality of the colonial parcels. In addition, the company distributed advertising brochures that contained a new type of publicity: the customer testimonial. This advertising strategy had been around since the 19th century, but regained popularity in the 1920s and 30s thanks to the ‘scientific confirmation’ of its efficiency by advertising psychologists (Walker Laird, 1998). It consisted of a formal word of mouth testimonial from a happy customer explaining the benefits of the product or service. This praise by a seemingly independent individual instead of a company promoting its wares had to increase the credibility of the claims about quality. To reinforce the authenticity of the customer testimonial, advertising professionals liked to call upon people who were well-known and held in high esteem by their target group, like film stars and singers, or members of the nobility or European royal families. This strategy was especially popular in the 1920s and 1930s, since the advertising world was convinced that social emulation was an important driver of consumption. Another option was letting so-called experts on the case voice their (enthusiastic) opinion (Leiss, Kline, & Jhally, 1990; Néama, 1932). Delhaize had opted for a testimonial by an experienced expert to convince consumers of the benefits, or rather the indispensability of their colonial parcels in order to lead a comfortable life in the Belgian Congo: in advertising brochures, potential customers could read the (fictitious) story of Robert, son of the Belgian Mr. and Mrs. Durand, in the form of a letter he had written his parents from the Congo. Robert had arrived in the colony 4 months earlier. The hardships of his primitive living conditions had faced him with a dilemma: “Sacrificing money for health or health for money”



(Delhaize, 1935). Up until now, he had had to make do with “appalling food parcels that cost a fortune” (Delhaize, 1935). Just like in the 1920s and early 1930s, Delhaize described the situation in the colony in terms of a lack of modern – understand: Western – comfort instead of characterising the Congo in terms of its own unique qualities. Luckily, Delhaize once again came to the rescue of the colonial in bleak circumstances: when Robert, at the suggestion of an acquaintance, tried Delhaize’s colonial service, all his problems were solved at once. He wrote to his parents: “Firstly, to my pleasant surprise, the price, including all costs, meant major savings compared to local retailers’. The second finding was even more satisfactory. Perfectly packaged, the parcels did not sustain any damage and their content looked very appetising, so appetising, in fact, that I was forced to increase surveillance of my servants, who have a taste for anything good and ‘free’…”(Delhaize, 1935). In other words, not only in the homeland, but also overseas could Delhaize offer the best possible products at the lowest possible price. The character of Robert Durand added credibility to this assertion. After all, he addressed the potential clients directly from the Congo, where he had experienced the deprivation first hand. So, if Robert wrote that Delhaize’s colonial parcels had changed his life in the colony significantly for the better, then it had to be true. And did not everybody wish to receive such a happy, comforting letter from his loved-ones? In passing, the company once again demonstrated its condescending yet paternalistic attitude towards Congo’s indigenous populations. They had a good heart, was the text’s suggestion, but without the discipline and moral authority of the colonials they would easily fall prey to their primitive and sometimes amoral instincts. The image which accompanies Roberts story (Fig. 7) presented a similar picture of his life in the Congo: it showed two white men confronted with the ferocity of the African landscape barely constrained by human interventions. There were no fields or roads to be seen, only dense vegetation that formed an almost impenetrable barrier between the colonials and the civilised world. Their basic needs were hardly met, the image implied, for the roof over their heads was no more than a simple tent. The same ‘vocabulary’ as in the 1920s and early 30s was used to contrast the civilised West with the primitive way of life in the Congo: the chairs and table symbolised civilised manners and superiority of both gentlemen. Only ‘savages’ sat on the ground to eat. Two of the black men in the picture wore Western type clothes, but all three of them were barefoot. This suggested they would never be on equal footing with the white colonials, no matter how ‘good mannered’ they became. In addition, the image is also structured around a vertical axis, with

Fig. 7. Image from the advertising brochure Une entreprise privée mise au service de l’intérêt public, 1935.

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on the left what is associated with negative qualities an on the right what is viewed as positive: the primitive living conditions depicted on the left would be eased up by Delhaize’s colonial service. The cases from the homeland were thus welcomed with enthusiasm by both men seated at the table. The comfort of home had finally arrived. The investments to make the colonial service attractive for individual consumers in the Congo seemed to pay off, since both the turnover and profit figures of the colonial department increased steadily, even during this time of crisis. Discussion Conclusion Following the dominant Government discourse, Delhaize portrayed Congo as a project of civilisation to which all Belgians could contribute through consumption. By buying products made from colonial resources, good citizens would stimulate the economic development of both their country and the colony. Despite the Ministry of Colonies’ portrayal of the Congo as an enormous potential outlet, Delhaize’s advertising campaigns never addressed the indigenous population; they were solely aimed at winning over colonials and their family members in the motherland. Delhaize’s own role in the civilising scheme was also very clear. The company’s vision on the Congo and its indigenous peoples echoed the State’s views on the relationship between Belgium and the Belgian Congo: the colony was characterised in terms of a lack of Western values, modernity, comfort and convenience instead of in terms of its own unique qualities. Not to worry, however, for Delhaize would come to the rescue. The company presented itself, and by extension also Belgium, as saviours in distress who would bring civilisation to the colony. Delhaize’s images and discourse highlight the comfort of both the availability of the familiar and reputed Delhaize foodstuffs and household items and the convenience of its fast and efficient service and safe, time-saving and pre-packaged and prepared goods, all indispensable for a comfortable and respectable life in the Congolese wilderness. In the context of the Congo, the argument of convenience in both acquisition and preparation seems to have been very convincing, given the continuous success of the service even during the economic crisis of the 1930s. Moreover, Delhaize promised to bring its Congolese customers a taste of home and childhood memories. These images were closely tied to traditional family values and related notions of respectability. Delhaize’s advertising thus framed the comfort and convenience offered by the company’s service and products within middle class views on respectability. In doing so, it resonated with interwar middle class discourse and social elite’s and civil society organisations’ initiatives to propagate middle class ideology in order to prevent social unrest and moral degeneration. References Buelens, F. (2007). Congo 1885–1960. Een financieel-economische geschiedenis. Berchem: EPO. Burke, T. (2012). Unexpected subversions. Modern colonialism, globalization, and commodity culture. In F. Trentmann (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of the history of consumption (pp. 467–484). New York: Oxford University Press. Delhaize (1930). Êtes-vous satisfait? Si non. . ., Imprimerie des Etablissements Delhaize Frères & Cie ’Le Lion’. Bruxelles. Delhaize (1932). Département colonial: nos emballages, notre service d’expédition, Imprimerie des Etablissements Delhaize ’Le Lion’. Bruxelles. Delhaize (1935). Une entreprise privée mise au service de l’intérêt public, Imprimerie des Etablissements Delhaize Frères & Cie ’Le Lion’. Bruxelles. Delhaize (1936). Exercice 1935–1936. Rapport du conseil d’administration. Bruxelles. Delhaize (1937). Exercice 1936–1937. Rapport du conseil d’administration. Bruxelles. DeVault, M. L. (1991). Feeding the family. The social organization of caring as gendered work. London/Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Guldentops, K. (2009). Congo als clou van het moderne België. De kolonie op de Belgische Wereldtentoonstellingen (1910–1935). In V. Viaene, D. Van Reybrouck, & D. Ceuppens (Eds.), Congo in België. Koloniale cultuur in de metropool (pp. 81–94), Universitaire Pers Leuven, Leuven. Hill, S. A. (2012). Families. A social class perspective. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.


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Hodge, R., & Kress, G. (1988). Social semiotics. Oxford: Polity Press. Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images. The grammar of visual design. London: Routledge. Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse. The modes and media of contemporary communication. London: Arnold. Lagae, J. (2005). Wonen in de Belgische kolonie. ‘Il faut donner à l‘agent congolais un home’. De Witte Raaf, 20(116), 15–17. Leiss, W., Kline, S., & Jhally, S. (1990). Social communication in advertising. Persons, products & images of well-being. London: Routledge. Néama, M. (1932). Publicité à l’Américaine. Bieleveld: Bruxelles. Nederveen-Pieterse, J. (1992). White on black: images of Africa and blacks in Western popular culture. New Haven: Yale University Press. Panofsky, E. (1972). Studies in iconology. Humanistic themes in the art of the renaissance. New York: Harper & Row.

Stanard, M. G. (2011). Selling the Congo. A history of European pro-empire propaganda and the making of Belgian imperialism. Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press. Teughels, N. (2014). Mag het iets meer zijn? Kleine kruidenierswinkels worden big business, Delhaize Frères & Cie (1867–1940). Leuven: Leuven University Press. Tilly, L. A., & Scott, J. W. (1987). Women, work and family. London: Routledge. van Leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing social semiotics. London: Routledge. Vanthemsche, G. (2012). Belgium and the Congo 1885–1980. New York: Cambridge University Press. Verschaffel, T. (2009). Congo in de Belgische zelfrepresentatie. In V. Viaene, D. Van Reybrouck, & D. Ceuppens (Eds.), Congo in België. Koloniale cultuur in de metropool (pp. 63–79). Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven. Walker Laird, P. (1998). Advertising progress. American business and the rise of consumer marketing. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.


Psychological measurement in Brazil in the 1920s and 1930s.

Contemporary health care and the colonial and neo-colonial experience: the case of the Dominican Republic.

The Colonial Medical Service.

Colonial Medical Research.

[Disciplinary non-consolidation. On the original of medieval archaeology in the 1920s and the 1930s].

Homosexuals and the death penalty in colonial America.

Information use in colonial living.

Form and metabolic scaling in colonial animals.

The colonial career of James Patrick Murray.

Jewish children in colonial times.

Sir Patrick Manson: physician to the Colonial Office, 1897-1912.

Fish skin bacteria: Colonial and cellular hydrophobicity.

Colonial pediatrics. Some random notes.

Colonial variation, capsule formation, and bacteriophage resistance in Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron.

A new colonial type of N. gonorrhoeae.

Mutant enrichment in the colonial alga, Eudorina elegans.

Organizer regions in marine colonial hydrozoans.

Telomere shortening in the colonial coral Acropora digitifera during development.

Mate choice and genetic monogamy in a biparental, colonial fish.

N. gonorrhoeae: pathogenicity of colonial type 5.

Erratum to: Merging scleractinian genera: the overwhelming genetic similarity between solitary Desmophyllum and colonial Lophelia.

Dr. Charles Nathan--his contribution to colonial Australian anaesthesia.

Pre-colonial Ethnic Institutions and Contemporary African Development.

Piliation and colonial morphology among laboratory strains of meningococci.