Dutch Online Supermarket Revolutionizing Food Shopping
Dutch supermarket Picnic is attempting to revolutionise the online grocery sector. Highly automated centres, like Picnic's in Utrecht, are full of lots of AI tech.
The firm says that enables it to deliver food fresher, faster and cheaper - a clear edge in a highly competitive industry.
In addition, Picnic says its adoption of AI has created lots of skilled new jobs, for instance in fields like data analysis, while removing much of the hard graft done by workers in its distribution and fulfilment hubs.
"AI creates an opportunity for many, many people that there are new jobs that don't exist currently, that they can do in the future," said Daniel Gebler, Picnic's Chief Technical Officer. "This is about creative work, but also technology takes over the repetitive work and the hard work."
The new distribution center has 40,000 m² of floor space and uses state-of-the-art technology to deliver groceries to more than 150,000 families per week. The core automation element is a shuttle warehouse comprising almost 40 aisles and more than 200,000 storage locations. The system also includes an energy-efficient KingDrive® conveyor network, as well as highly ergonomic PickCenter One picking workstations.
To ensure the best product quality, Picnic's fulfillment center is divided into several temperature zones: ambient, chilled and frozen. This makes the planning and realization of this project particularly demanding. Most of the goods received will be stored in the shuttle. Customer orders start either in the Zone-Picking area or at one of the PickCenter One picking workstations. Then, orders are stored in the shuttle for consolidation. Thanks to the new solution, food waste as well as the use of packaging material can be reduced significantly. 20,000 m² of solar panels will be used as power source. With this initiative, Picnic takes a big step in making the food chain more sustainable.
Picnic co-founder Frederik Nieuwenhuys underscores: “The robot-assisted distribution center in Utrecht, in combination with our electric cars, is the foundation of our unique “farm to fork” strategy where proprietary Picnic technology is used to provide consumers with ultra-fresh products and deliver groceries to their homes free of charge.
A new way to shop for groceries
Parking his electric van outside a house in Amersfoort, Daniel Gebler grabs his grocery delivery and rings the doorbell at number 4. Daniel’s trusty application—developed in-house—notifies him that a free apple pie has been added to this customer’s delivery to mark their 100th order. The customer answers the door and Daniel shares the good news with a smile and friendly chat. With that, he’s off to his next destination. What the customer doesn’t know is that the man who just delivered their shopping is actually the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of the app-only supermarket Picnic, and one of the architects of a company that is revolutionising online grocery shopping and technology in the Netherlands and beyond.
But what drives a CTO to spend time making delivery runs for the company he helped develop into one of Europe’s fastest-growing online supermarkets? “Every now and then we feel it’s important to get out of the office and spend some time out in the field; we want to feel what the customer is feeling and see how our teams are doing.”
Spotting a gap in the market
Picnic’s passion to foster healthy relationships between customers, partners and employees, can be seen from the moment you step into the recently expanded HQ.
It’s here, on the top floor, that German-born Gebler holds court, explaining how, after moving to Amsterdam to undertake his PhD at Amsterdam’s CWI, he became part of a team of 30 engineers who developed Picnic from scratch. The idea started when the firm’s founders saw the growth of online shopping for clothes, electronics and other goods, and realised that no one was doing the same for food. “When we started, only 1.5% of the market was buying food online, and people kept saying that food doesn’t work online. Instead, we saw 98.5% worth of opportunity. This switch of mindset is the most important thing. We wanted to build a new category and market, and this is what keeps us busy day and night.”
The secret to Picnic's success
The theory is simple: customers use an app to order their goods and choose a delivery time. After they have ordered, the items are packed by a ‘shopper’ in one of Picnic’s distribution centres, then delivered by a ‘runner’ at the designated time. Because Picnic doesn’t have stores, the company is able to deliver fresher and cheaper products than traditional supermarkets. The deliveries are always free, the vehicles are 100% electric, and the friendly runners aim to bring back the milkman-style service from days gone by. Picnic attributes its rapid growth to being more than a grocery delivery company. Since launching in Amersfoort in 2015, the foundation of Picnic’s success has been its innovative technology, which is almost always developed in-house. Developing so much within the company has its challenges to be sure, but it affords Picnic a level of control and freedom that wouldn’t be possible if it was to outsource these responsibilities.
Picnic uses technology to create a more personalised and efficient service for its customers, as with Gebler’s ‘apple pie’ notification. This is why the company invests so much time and effort into finding and hiring the top tech talent from across the world.
Growing with current customers in mind
As much as Picnic relies on its distribution model and technology to keep costs down and profits up, its most important relationship is the one that it has with its customers. This means that it doesn’t just look for your average delivery person—it’s after runners with a particular set of skills.
“We look beyond traditional delivery experience, and instead look for people who have come from a hospitality background. Those people have experience in an industry that knows how to serve and enjoys serving customers. That makes our business, and our customers appreciate it. Our focus is delivering perfect service to customers. Of course, we want to grow continuously, but we need to do so while continuing to provide our existing customers with the great service they’ve come to expect.”
Whether stopping by with a delivery or planning the company’s next move from their Amsterdam HQ, it seems that the customer is always on Picnic’s mind.
Picnic was founded in Amersfoort in 2015 and has expanded rapidly in the Netherlands and Germany. Operating from eight distribution centers, the company delivers groceries to more than 130 cities to an ever growing number of customers. The only way to place an order is through an intuitive app. Those who order before 10 p.m. will receive their fresh, chilled and frozen food the next day. Fruit, vegetables, meat and dry goods are delivered by small eco-friendly electric vans without emissions.
