Edeka has increased its stake in Picnic. Since last week, the top man of the German group, Markus Mosa, is also board member at the Dutch online supermarket.
Ever closer cooperation
The news about Edeka has meanwhile been confirmed by Picnic-director Michiel Muller. Yet he does not want to reveal how big the interest of the Germans has become. “I keep the percentage to myself,” he told Dutch newspaper FD. Before the expansion of its stake, Edeka already had 10% of the shares in Picnic and 35% of the shares in the German subsidiary of the web supermarket.
Since last week Edeka-CEO Markus Mosa is also a board member at Picnic. According to Muller the cooperation now goes much further than three years ago, when Picnic started in Germany. “And Mosa has a lot of retail knowledge. That is always welcome”, he says. Last autumn, both companies also set up the new purchasing organisation Everest.
Until recently, the German supermarket chain had its own grocery delivery service under the name Bringmeister. It has since sold that service. Mosa declared last week that Picnic would eventually become the online branch of Edeka. However, the web supermarket would retain its independence, according to the Edeka CEO.
