TGW Equips Fulfillment Center for Picnic in Oberhausen

The Dutch online supermarket Picnic once again relies on the expertise and experience of intralogistics specialist TGW. A powerful fulfillment center is being built in Oberhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia, which will lay the foundation for Picnic’s further growth in the German market by summer 2024. Both companies share a close, collaborative partnership: Recently, the first jointly planned and realized logistics system in Utrecht celebrated its go-live.

(Marchtrenk/Oberhausen) eFood specialist Picnic was founded in 2015 in Amersfoort, Netherlands, and has quickly developed into a leading European eGrocery provider. The growing online supermarket is currently active in the Netherlands, Germany, and France. Orders can be placed via an intuitive app, and deliveries are made using environmentally friendly electric vehicles. Customers who order by 10:00 PM receive fresh, chilled, and frozen groceries conveniently delivered to their doorstep the very next day: thanks to the so-called “milkman principle,” deliveries are made precisely on time and without delivery costs.

Order Picking from Three Temperature Zones

To further drive its expansion in the German market, Picnic is building a highly automated fulfillment center in the heart of the Ruhr area. The FlashPick^® system planned by TGW is powerful, reliable, and extremely flexible – enabling the best customer service with maximum efficiency. At its core is a shuttle warehouse with 40 aisles: food and non-food items are stored there in three temperature ranges at 20, 4, and -25 degrees Celsius.

Robots Increase Efficiency

Customer orders begin at one of more than 60 ergonomic PickCenter One picking workstations or in the zone-picking area – primarily containing high-volume products and fast movers. Subsequently, the orders are consolidated into an automated buffer.

Just before the trucks depart for local distribution points, the orders are extracted to a robot-assisted system developed by TGW, which automatically loads the customer order containers into transport frames, thereby increasing efficiency.

Thanks to the performance of the TGW FlashPick^® system and Picnic’s algorithms, the fulfillment center is among the most powerful of its kind. “The project in Oberhausen is another milestone and marks the next level of collaboration with Picnic. This renewed vote of confidence is a great confirmation of our close cooperation,” says Hans De Sutter, Managing Director of TGW Benelux.

Setting Standards for the Industry

Picnic co-founder Frederik Nieuwenhuys adds: “TGW is a great partner that makes this top-class project possible together with Picnic. The combination of the Picnic tech team and TGW technology shows that we can provide even better service to our customers and thus set standards in the industry.”

Photo: © TGW