Picnic said it operates Europe’s largest online grocery fulfillment center, which is able to swiftly supply 200,000 households in the Ruhr area of Germany. After its first joint project with TGW Logistics in Utrecht in the Netherlands, Picnic worked with the company to automate the distribution center in Oberhausen, Germany.
“TGW Logistics is an excellent partner that made this high-end project possible,” stated Picnic co-founder Frederik Nieuwenhuys. “The combination of the Picnic tech team and TGW technology demonstrates that we can offer our customers even better service and thus set standards in the industry.”
Founded in 2015, Picnic provides online groceries in the Netherlands, Germany, and France. Customers can place orders with an app, and environmentally friendly electric vehicles make the deliveries.
Customers can choose from an assortment of 10,000 products, and if they order by 10:00 p.m., the chilled, frozen and ambient food will be delivered to their doorsteps the next day. Thanks to the “milkman principle,” delivery times are accurate down to the minute, claimed Amsterdam-based Picnic.
Picnic puts shuttles in three temperature zones
Picnic recently opened the automated fulfillment center in Oberhausen as part of its planned growth in the German market. TGW Logistics said it planned and implemented a high-performance system to optimize efficiency and customer service.
The core element is a shuttle warehouse where 1,500 robots move entirely autonomously. Groceries and non-food items are stored there in three temperature areas ranging from -0.4°F to 68°F (-18°C to 20°C).
Customer orders begin at one of the more than 60 ergonomic PickCenter picking workstations or in the zone-picking area, which mainly handles high-volume products or fast-moving items. The orders are then consolidated in a buffer.
Shortly before the trucks leave for the local distribution points, items are transferred to a robot-assisted system developed by TGW Logistics, which automatically loads the customer totes into transport frames.
Save the date for the 2026 Robotics SummitTGW Logistics marks collaboration milestone
Up to 33,000 customer orders can be processed per day at Picnic’s new facility, according to TGW Logistics.
“We are delighted with the successful go-live in Oberhausen,” said Bart van Eycken, director of sales for the Customer Unit North at TGW Logistics. “This fulfillment center is a milestone and marks the next level of collaboration between Picnic and TGW Logistics.”
The Marchtrenk, Austria-based company is a leading supplier of material handling systems. TGW’s customers include brands from Adidas to Zalando. The systems integrator said it plans, produces, implements and services complex logistics centers—from mechatronic products and robots to control systems and software.
TGW Logistics has subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. and employs about 4,500 people worldwide. In the 2023/24 business year, the company generated a total revenue of 1.07 billion euros ($1.24 billion U.S.).
