Dutch online supermarket startup Picnic could be setting its sights on the UK.
Picnic, which runs a fulfilment model closer to the traditional milk round than other online supermarkets, received €100m last year to roll out across the Netherlands from Dutch investors NPM Capital, De Hoge Dennen, Hoyberg, and Finci.
Founder Joris Beckers this week told The Grocer that while there no “concrete plans”, he was interested in the UK market, having begun operating in Germany for the first time in April this year.
“The UK is an attractive market,” he said.
Picnic launched at the end of 2015 in Amersfoort and now operates in 50 cities across the Netherlands as well as Dusseldorf, its first in Germany. It’s grown from nine cities since March last year.
Beckers credits the €100m investment gained last March and rapid expansion it has fed to the milk round model, which enables free delivery and has led to rapid uptake.
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He wouldn’t reveal what valuation the investment placed on the business, but said: “We were in five to 10 cities and we saw massive adoption. So half the population would sign up to Picnic. Not 5% but 50%. And therefore the assumption is if you can do this in five cities or 50 cities, you can also do this in many more cities. That led to the valuation.”
Electric vehicles deliver at a set time each day, operating according to a bus-type timetable, offering customers a slot that is “minute-precise” according to Beckers. The timetable varies throughout the week, so customers who don’t want a particular slot one day can choose an earlier or later one. Next-day delivery is available on orders placed up to 10pm and the service operates seven days a week.
Beckers said it differed from Müller’s Milk & More doorstep delivery service in that Picnic offered a full supermarket range.
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“It’s something new, so a truly meaningful innovation,” he said. “And it’s a much more efficient model that allows us to bring online groceries to the mass market.
“In the UK, for example, there are many very good online supermarkets and models, like Ocado and Tesco, but it is always a premium service for which we have to pay. And therefore it’s for the happy few, not for everyone.”
He said: “Our proposition is more mainstream. We think the UK has fantastic premium online delivery services and they’ve done very well and built 5% or 6% market share or so. But we think in the future there is also potential for a more mainstream service.”
But he added: “For now we’re busy. We need to roll out city by city. There are new cities in Germany and new cities in Holland. And there might of course also come a new international expansion but not immediately.”
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