The online supermarket Picnic, together with TGW Logistics, has opened a new fulfillment center in Oberhausen. The automated facility enables daily deliveries to up to 200,000 households in the Ruhr area. A robot system developed by TGW automatically loads the transport frames with customer orders. According to the companies, it is the largest eFood fulfillment center in Europe. As stated in a press release on July 30, 2025, Picnic is once again relying on collaboration with TGW Logistics.
Picnic was founded in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, in
2015 and is now among the established European eFood providers. The company operates in the Netherlands, Germany, and France. Customers order via app, and delivery is made the following day with electric vehicles. Around 10,000 products are available, including fresh, chilled, and frozen foods. The basis is the so-called "milkman principle."
The new distribution center was built in the heart of the Ruhr area. It is based on a system by TGW Logistics. The central element is a shuttle warehouse with 1,500 autonomous robots, where food
and non-food products are stored in three temperature zones – from minus 18 to plus 20 degrees Celsius.
The picking process begins at more than 60 ergonomic PickCenter workstations as well as in the zone-picking area for large-volume or particularly fast-moving items. After consolidation, customer orders are placed in a buffer. Shortly before the truck departs for the local distribution points, a robot-supported system takes over the automatic loading of the containers into the transport frames. Up to 33,000 orders can thus be processed daily.
"We
are very pleased with the successful go-live in Oberhausen! The fulfillment center is a milestone and marks the next level of cooperation between Picnic and TGW Logistics," emphasizes Bart van Eycken, Director Sales of the Customer Unit North at TGW Logistics.
Picnic co-founder Frederik Nieuwenhuys is also satisfied: "TGW Logistics is a great partner that made this exceptional project possible together with Picnic. The combination of Picnic's tech team and TGW technology shows that we can offer our customers even better service and set standards in
