Food
Amazon wants to turn your fridge into a store. The company is said to be developing a smart fridge, one that could make the supermarket superfluous.
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In the Netherlands, Albert Heijn remains the clear market leader in the online grocery market. Pure player Picnic has pushed Jumbo out of second place.
Dutch online supermarket Picnic is officially launching in France. After a test in Valenciennes under the pseudonym TocToc, the company is now going for a phased roll-out.
It has been a historic year for supermarkets, and Tesco is no exception: the British market leader saw its sales rise by almost 9 %, but the extra costs were so high that profits fell by around 20 %.
Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd are to merge their e-commerce activities in Germany and appear to be preparing to sell groceries online in the near future.
Walmart has partnered with smart box manufacturer HomeValet to facilitate the delivery of perishable food items. The system offers great advantages for both the consumer and the supermarket chain.
HelloFresh can no longer keep up in Germany. Demand has exploded to such an extent that the mealbox provider is bribing customers to cancel their weekly order: those who cancel will receive ten euros.
In the United States, Ahold Delhaize acquires FreshDirect, an online supermarket in New York City specializing in fresh produce.
In five years' time, Picnic wants to be a major international player. A new purchasing alliance with German market leader Edeka and the launch of its own private label should make that possible: France and the United Kingdom are already in sight.
An impressive record for Tesco: the British supermarket chain is the first to deliver a million grocery orders in one week. The retailer hired 16,000 additional employees to cope with the surge in orders due to the corona crisis.
Rohlik, the leading grocery delivery service in the Czech Republic, has started its European expansion: the grocery delivery service just started in Hungary, Austria, and Romania, but is already approaching Germany.
Albert Heijn has announced a fifth distribution centre for online orders. Home delivery is quickly becoming more popular at ah.nl, and so the new centre will constructed in Amsterdam, creating about 1000 jobs.
Bread will become increasingly available online, which will have its impact on supermarkets, industrial bakeries and the consumer, according to Rabobank's Online Bakery: Browsing for Bread report.
