The online channel represents a huge untapped opportunity for fruit and vegetable sales in Germany.
Online food sales in Germany lag well behind the UK and France, at just one per cent of all products bought digitally, delegates at the German Fruit & Vegetable Congress in Düsseldorf heard today (21 September). The sector was described by various speakers as a 'dwarf'.
Volker Brokelmann, a senior analyst at HSH Nordbank, said he expected the online channel to grow but predicted it will be the big supermarket chains who already have bricks and mortar stores who will dominate in Germany, rather than newer entrants such as Amazon Fresh.
“You can’t close your eyes to online. It’s slow progress but the progress is happening,” he said. “But it will be driven by bricks and mortar retailers operating multichannel formats. We have learnt this from the UK and France.”
Nevertheless, some digital upstarts are already starting to break through. Frederic Knaudt, founder of Dutch food delivery service Picnic, explained how his business has launched to rave reviews in Germany in the past year.
The app-based online supermarket has styled itself as a modern day ‘milkman’, with its electric vehicles delivering to customers who have ordered via an app.
“Online can help with some of the problems regarding the shopping experience in supermarkets,” Knaudt explained. “We spend 20 working days a year and 912km of driving to do supermarket shopping.”
Knaudt said Picnic overcomes some of the traditional problems of home food delivery, such as the cost and needing to wait for hours, by offering free delivery and precise, sat nav-tracked times so shoppers know exactly when the driver will arrive.
He also pointed out that some 16 per cent of what Picnic customers purchase is fruit and veg – double that of a traditional home food delivery basket.
Picnic, which raised a record €100 million in funding last year after just a year and a half in business, is already extending its reach in Germany, having recently rolled out in Kaarst and Moenchengladbach. Knaudt pointed out that the service is also offering regional variations in response to customer demand.
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