After Apeldoorn and Berkel en Rodenrijs, Picnic is opening another distribution centre ahead of schedule. This time in Zaandam. The building is right opposite competitor Albert Heijn's logistics centre.
From the 20,000-square-metre building, Picnic plans to supply urban North Holland, including Amsterdam-Noord and Zaanstad. The groceries will be taken from the distribution centre to local hubs where they will be delivered to customers by electric trolleys. This was previously done from the distribution centre in Diemen.
"We see that Diemen is no longer enough for Amsterdam and the surrounding area," co-founder Michiel Muller tells the Parool. "From Zaandam, we will serve part of Amsterdam, but also Haarlem. We can also add many more customers in Zaanstad, Alkmaar and Purmerend, where we already operate."
Old building Aldi
The new building is twice the size of the Diemen site. Here, Picnic replaces large-grater Aldi, which moved out of the building on Westerspoor industrial estate at the end of last year. A nice find, argues Muller. "It was built for supermarket distribution. At the time, Diemen we had to completely rebuild before it was adequate. This already contains cold stores."
Apeldoorn and Berkel en Rodenrijs
Picnic expects the branch to create five hundred jobs. The app-only supermarket aims to be operational there by the end of June. The opening was actually planned for autumn 2021, but has been brought forward due to the high demand for online groceries.
The same happened earlier at the Apeldoorn and Berkel en Rodenrijs branches. Since the corona outbreak, the number of orders at Picnic has been rising considerably. By accelerating the opening of distribution centres, the online supermarket hopes to meet the growing demand and take pressure off other logistics centres.
