Driving change: how the supermarket on wheels reduces environmental impact

Symbolized by our iconic electric delivery fleet, our sustainability commitment has been part of Picnic since day 1. In honor of World Environment Day, we shed a light on our ‘green’ practices, challenges, and what the future holds.

World Environment Day is a global mark on the calendar to remind us just how dependent we are on the environment around us to sustain business activity, and the responsibility we have to limit our physical impact and do no harm. Today, we reflect on Picnic’s commitment to sustainability, the challenges ahead, and the importance of collaboration to achieve common goals.

Driving change from day 1

Picnic was founded to offer a “smart, clean, and green” way to do groceries. When setting up the company in 2015, we asked ourselves whether the current supermarket model was fit for the changing natural environment and lifestyles. We wanted to develop an operational model in which sustainability was central — the modern milkman who uses resources smartly and cuts out unnecessary waste.

Early on we made design choices to imprint sustainability foundations in our business model. Our online-only purchase model means we have unmatched data analytics capability in the industry. We know exactly how many customers are shopping with us which enables us to better match supply to demand and minimise food waste. Our delivery proposition replaces individual trips to the supermarket — with one electric delivery, we replace about 24 individual trips to the store. And of course, we have opted for an all-electric last-mile fleet to ensure we don’t pollute the environment during deliveries. No matter how much we scale, these sustainability ‘checks and balances’ ensure we don’t consume, waste, and pollute unnecessarily. As you see, Picnic is a unique example of a company whose purpose and business model help prevent or at least minimise environmental problems while still running a profitable business.

Beyond these fundamentals, we continually innovate to improve the sustainability performance of our business. We run a closed-loop recycling system for our plastic bags, several programmes to avoid wasting food products that are approaching their selling date, and we highlight vegetarian and vegan products and alternatives in our Store.

Keeping track

However, sustainability work is never really done and there’s still much to improve. Last year we took a wider look at our value chain and how we contribute to impacts. We measured our full carbon footprint, Scope 1, 2, and 3, to identify energy and emissions’ hot spots, looked at the ratio of plant-based products compared to animal-based products, and started the work to better understand where the food that we sell comes from.

We realised that even though we were running an all-electric last-mile fleet, we were still powering the vehicles with energy from non-renewable sources. To fix that, we switched to 100% renewable energy supply for electricity. We also saw that most of our environmental footprint sits with the food we sell — the resources it takes to grow and transport the food, and the related emissions and waste from packaging and food loss. This is a very big topic to tackle, and one where we need suppliers and customers alike to transition to a better food system. For example, we assessed our full assortment for ‘outliers’ — the products that have a disproportionately high environmental footprint to their margin. Beef and dairy showed up high on the charts. We have alternative products for these categories, but we don’t know how many of our customers would actually shift their diets and preferences toward these products. Right now we are developing an approach to nudge customers to these products but we need your insights to help us find an effective way forward. Expect more communication from us in the coming months!

Tackling challenges

We are taking many more steps to further reduce environmental impacts, but as with everything — the road to impact is not a straight line. For example, we have partnered with a solar energy company to install on-site solar energy generation, but we are limited by the grid’s capacity to take back generated electricity. Or take Picnic’s closed loop system to recycle plastic bags — food safety regulations require that bags carrying food have three layers of plastic to protect the consumer from any contamination, but recycling facilities can only recycle two layers at max. These are just a few examples of challenges that we can only overcome in collaboration with others.

The road ahead

World Environment Day is a reminder that sustainability is everyone’s job — today and every day. It presents an incredible opportunity to innovate, question the status quo, and re-imagine what’s possible. We began this journey in 2015, and we are ever more committed to working with our partners, suppliers, and customers to make “smart, green, and clean” grocery shopping commonplace.

Written by Anna Krotova, Sustainability Lead