Picnic • Innovation by young talent

Picnic is a fast-growing grocery delivery company in the Netherlands. For this blog, we went to the Picnic headquarters in Amsterdam for an interview with business analyst Jenneke Evers. She told us all about how she landed at Picnic, what it is like to work there and the business itself.  

Picnic’s headquarters

For those of you who do not know it yet, Picnic is an app-only online supermarket that delivers groceries to customers within a selected time slot of 20 minutes, without delivery costs. on a time slot that suits you. The company started in Amersfoort four years ago, and right now Picnic delivers in more than 40 cities in the Netherlands and they have expanded to Germany as well. Customers can order all their groceries until 22:00 for next-day delivery. Picnic has They have no physical stores, but they work with hubs (small distribution centers on the edge of cities, called hubs, from where they deliver the groceries using fully electric vehicles.

The first thing I see as I walk into the headquarters in Amsterdam, are two guys playing ping pong in the entry hallway of the building. Another employee leads me into the beautiful and modern canteen and makes me a cup of tea, while I wait for Jenneke Evers to pick me up for the interview. In the middle of the canteen is a big bowl of fruits and vegetables that are up for grabs. Next to the canteen is a big working space and I notice that most people in there, look quite young. The average age of employees is 27 years old. As I turn my head, I see Jenneke approaching me.

About Jenneke Evers

Jenneke is a very sweet and spontaneous young woman. She tells me that she studied Systems Engineering and Policy Analysis Management at Delft University of Technology technical administration and did a masters in Civil Engineering. After finishing doing her graduation thesis on demand forecast models at Picnic, where she compared various machine learning models to forecast next-day demand on product-level which forecasts the number of products the company will need the next day, she stayed stuck around for a job as an Analyst.

She started in the logistical team and is currently working is in the Growth team, which focuses on marketing and forecasting short- and long term demand the number of orders, on short term as well as long term basis, based on historical data and new insights. The team is a mix of creatives and analysts. One of Jenneke’s current projects is to attract new businesses. “I really like the variety of my job, it includes many topics, like market research, customer analysis and collaboration with tech teams.” On top of that, she does some marketing work, which is especially interesting since they are now focusing on selling to businesses as well.  

Working at Picnic

Working at Picnic as an Analyst means a lot of freedom and variety, but also a responsibility. “From the start, you are asked to show independence, luckily you can always ask anything to your colleagues”. As you might have noticed, Jenneke’s job entails a variety of things. The work is very diverse and there is a lot of room to explore and try or learn new things. If there is a project going on that you want to contribute in and you have the time to do so, you can join in. Jenneke, for example, got the opportunity and the time to expand her knowledge in the data science field and write models in Python and learn how to make these models. 

Projects are moving fast, employees are flexible, which makes it interesting for young people to come to work here. Plus, if you want to grow into higher positions, you can get that opportunity. The mentality at Picnic is that if you have an idea, and it is worth trying, just try it. That is probably why the company grows so fast. Picnic makes sure that there is a lot of freedom and variation in your job, to keep it interesting. One of Picnic’s current projects is to make their logistical operations fulfillment centers increasingly automatic with the help of using for example robots which collect-grab groceries from the shelves and bring it to the ‘shopper’. who has to gather the groceries. This way, one fulfillment center could serve more people customers with the same amount of employees.

Future and tips 

Picnic is likely to continue growing in the future, both in the Netherlands and other countries.  For the future, Jenneke is hoping to see the company grow outside of the Netherlands and she is hoping that Picnic can attract more businesses than they do right now. Right now, it is mostly families and elderly who order their groceries. Lastly, Jenneke encourages you to do a master case study at a real company. Pick a company that you think you would like to work at, so that you can really get a taste of what it is like in the company and see if the company and work suits you. That is a very valuable thing to do.

Looking for any work opportunities? You can check out Aureus’ career platform via this link.