Why should you choose Picnic? My 5 top reasons

Why should you get your groceries from Picnic? Picnic is the young supermarket that comes with a modern and sustainable concept. I think they have a really cool set up, and they are – for one whole year nowour trusted companions for our weekly grocery shopping. In this post I tell you 5 good reasons to choose Picnic. What I like the most and what I’d like to see improved in the future.

5 reasons to do grocery shopping with Picnic

Recently I have published a post about the cheapest supermarket of the Netherlands (2021), and Picnic does not stand out for being the most convenient. In my manual comparison with Jumbo and Albert Heijn, it does show to perform well compared to these large brands, but that’s not the cheapest overall.
Also, if you follow me on socials (FB and IG), you will have noticed that I like to nose around for nice delicacies (Italian, of course, but also from other countries), and both Lidl and AH remain among my favorite for that.
Yet, if we talk about the regular weekly grocery shopping, we are trusting now (almost completely) Picnic.
These are the 5 good reasons to do grocery shopping with Picnic:

  1. The comfort
  2. The timing and flexibility
  3. The modern and sustainable concept
  4. Customer friendly
  5. Cheap

PS. If you are new to the idea of Picnic you may want to read the other post about the principles of Picnic, and how to start everything up. And if you are thinking of joining (even before reading the pro’s), contact me for 5 euros discount!

1. The comfort

Let’s be honest: that’s by far the driving reason for choosing Picnic for grocery shopping. I can easily collect items I miss the moment I notice it, without spreading information on all the pieces of paper and devices around the house. Also, every family member can download the app and log in with the same singular account, thus can also see the same list and contribute to it.
The groceries get delivered on the mat at our front door, I just need to sort them in the proper places. It saves me so much time, energies and money, that I seriously doubt I will ever let this privilege go.
It’s even possible to return empty (plastic and glass) bottles – as long as they are selling that type – batteries, and to send DHL packages. All without stepping out of your front door!

2. The timing and flexibility

When we realize we really need to refill, we can often manage to get the groceries already the next day (also during weekends). If you ask me, just ideal.
When we plan the delivery with some days of advance, we can still add items until the day before (until 13.00 for deliveries planned in the morning or until 22.00 for deliveries planned in any other moment of the day), the flexibility you wish.

When you reserve your delivery, that’s for a certain 1 hour time slot on a certain day. That day (of the delivery) in the morning, you get a refined time window of 20 minutes. Then, they notify you as soon as they leave the warehouse to get to your house, and you can follow them in the app. In short, you are still extremely flexible and you hardly can miss them!

2. The modern and sustainable concept

Picnic has minimal warehouses, drives 100% electric buses that go along optimized routes, chooses products that are produced as close as possible, focuses mostly on seasonal products, and reuses recyclable plastic bags.

Minimal warehouse. From the information leaflet I got at the first delivery (which seems to be printed on recycled paper), I understood that Picnic works with a minimal stock. The idea is that after collecting all the orders from clients for the next day, they redirect the requests to the different providers (bakers, greengrocer, butchers, …) who then bring the products to Picnic’s warehouses. For example, they request exactly the bread that will be needed the upcoming day, and no extra baguette is produced without being reserved!
This seems optimal to me: fresh products for the clients (if the providers work equally well, the products are just as fresh as they could), less waste (no risk of having unsold products lying in the warehouse), and reduced costs (since also the warehouses won’t need to be that large. ‘Picnic saves’ you say, but in the end that’s how they can offer competitive prices to us.

Optimized routes. At the moment of ordering your delivery, you can pick a time slot among a certain selection, that corresponds to when their wagons are by default covering the area you live in. Since recently they also highlight the greenest option among them.
Again, optimal for the environment and for the costs (their own and ours!)

Local and seasonal products. Don’t get me wrong: you will find also exotic choices, but the idea is that for what they can, they go local. The selection of products is more limited than in other supermarkets and they tend to restrict to seasonal products (learnt the hard way by hoping I would finally get the expected Brussel sprouts last spring!)

Reusable recyclable plastic bags. It’s still plastic, but it’s recycled and they recollect the bags from the clients at every next delivery.

3. Customer friendly

In the app it’s possible to give a feedback directly after having received the groceries, and in the few cases we have had problems or questions, we had a really quick reaction from the customer service.

In case something in your shopping car is not deliverable, then they either (automatically) pay back, or they give you an alternative product and pay you back. I must say that this used to happen much more often in the past, while now we are rather often getting the full list.

4. Cheap

Picnic is not the cheapest, but it’s not a steal. Personally I had to adjust greatly from my habits of running behind promotions, but now I am valuing their ‘flatter prices policy’ a lot. It costs me less effort and I am not pushed to buy much more than what I need – with clear advantages for the storing space at home.
Also the fact that it’s delivered for free for any expense above the 35 euros (and below it you can’t just get it delivered), saves me some thinking and weighting. I don’t go after the supermarket offering the best subscription, or the delivery time that is the cheapest. I had some genuine curiosity about the ‘truly free delivery’, and after comparing the prices of the products with Albert Heijn and Jumbo, I quietly started trusting Picnic fully.

Possible improvement points

As you can read, I am very satisfied with the service, and I keep trusting it for our weekly grocery shopping. There are of course things I would still like to see improved, or added…

  • less plastic (and I refer to product packaging, because as mentioned the bags are from recycled plastic and reused from delivery to delivery)
  • more variation on products – especially if that could still fit in the sustainability goals.

And for you, what are the reasons to do grocery shopping with Picnic?
If you are not part of the Picnic crew yet, but would like to join do not forget to contact me for a 5 euros discount.
(And nope, this is not sponsored content! Just my pure and genuine enthusiasm).

Doeii!
Marta

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