Ahold Delhaize reported growth in its second quarter results despite the deleterious effects of the Stop & Shop strike, which lasted for 11 days in April and affected 246 of the banner's 415 stores. At the time the estimated impact on underlying operating profit was between $90 million $110 million.

"Although our results were impacted by the strike at Stop & Shop, our other U.S. brands continued their strong performance," said Frans Muller, president and chief executive officer of Ahold Delhaize. "As we continue to see sales performance improve at Stop & Shop, we expect no significant impact from the strike in the second half of the year.

"U.S. comparable sales excluding gasoline were up 0.2 percent during the quarter, with the strike impact offset by the strong performance of our other brands, in particular Food Lion," he said. "Excluding the impact from the strike and subsequent period of sales recovery and the favorable timing of Easter, comparable sales excluding gasoline were up 2.3 percent."

Ahold Delhaize's online business in the U.S. grew 14.4 percent, or 18 percent excluding the adverse impact of the strike; the company said it remains confident that it can achieve over 20 percent growth in U.S. online sales in 2019.

"During the quarter, we continued to make steady progress on the execution of our Leading Together strategy. We started the rollout of our 'Re-imagine Stop & Shop' program on Long Island, implementing learnings from the Hartford, Connecticut, stores we remodeled last year," said Muller. "We also launched various fresh food initiatives across the businesses in both the U.S. and Europe, providing healthy and convenient meal solutions for our customers."