Picnic sees 40% growth in France

In France, the Dutch online supermarket Picnic generated €140 million in revenue last year, a 40% increase compared to the previous year. However, it will be at least another five years before the company turns a profit.

Heading to Lyon

Picnic, currently operating in northern France around Lille and in the Île-de-France region around Paris, is looking for locations for two new warehouses: one north of Paris and one near Lyon, where the retailer aims to enter a new region. The company records 40,000 orders per week and claims a 40% market share in home meal delivery in the Hauts-de-France region and 10% in Île-de-France. Revenue is growing strongly, but Grégoire Borgoltz, COO of Picnic France, says he doesn’t plan to start thinking about profitability for another five years, according to trade magazine LSA.

To be profitable, Picnic’s model requires a service area of at least 1 million households within a 150-km radius. The retailer is therefore targeting major cities for expansion. At the same time, Picnic wants to increase the average order value. Currently, that stands at 90 euros. The minimum order amount has therefore been raised from 35 to 40 euros. In addition, the e-commerce player is positioning itself more as a recipe provider, similar to HelloFresh.

Picnic sources its products through Intermarché, France’s third-largest retailer. However, the retailer is increasingly purchasing traditional fresh products such as vegetables, meat, and cheese directly from producers. The private-label offering in France remains limited to 100 products for the time being, compared to 3,000 in the Netherlands.