Expansion throughout Germany and emphasis on sustainability, in which it wants to be a leader in the German market. These are Rockaway Capital’s plans for German on-line supermarket Bringmeister, which Jakub Havrlant’s investment group bought from EDEKA. The acquisition of the fast-growing on-line grocery player, which currently operates in Berlin, Munich, Potsdam and their vicinity, was successfully completed at the end of April.
After the sale of tours, tickets and travel services through the Invia Group, the Rockaway Capital investment group is expanding its activities on the German market with another service, with which it has extensive experience from its portfolio thanks to the Košík.cz on-line supermarket. It has purchased Bringmeister, which has been selling food to its German customers and delivering purchases to homes for over 20 years, from the EDEKA Group.
Last year, not only thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, which accelerated the growth of e-commerce worldwide, Bringmeister experienced a record year in which it more than doubled the number of orders received. It currently has over 20,000 kinds of products in its two warehouses, including selected local and organic foods from brands such as Alnatura, Basic, Bio Zentrale or EDEKA Bio, whose assortment is the broadest on the German market. Bringmeister delivers purchases on the same day and its customers can choose delivery in time slots of one, two or four hours. The on-line supermarket also offers freshly sliced sausages and cheeses by weight.
“Bringmeister has been making life easier for its customers since 1997 and today boasts a state-of-the-art service compared to its German competition. The German retail market is the largest in Europe, but on-line food purchases still make up a small fraction, so we believe that the combination of Bringmeister’s experience, our know-how and the growth potential of the market as a whole is a huge opportunity,” says CEO and founder of Rockaway Capital Jakub Havrlant.
This is a major investment for his group, one that should open the door to further opportunities in foreign expansion. “The German market is key for us abroad and we want to focus on it more. The acquisition of Bringmeister provides a number of logical synergies within our portfolio, which we are now analyzing and considering,” adds Havrlant. Bringmeister is not connected in any way with Czech on-line supermarket Košík.cz; it has a different ownership structure, but future cooperation is not ruled out, for example, in the area of their product catalogues or by sharing technological platforms.
“We believe that our customers appreciate Bringmeister’s broad assortment and quality of products, which is why we have significantly expanded our organic food offering over the last two years, which is today the largest of all German on-line supermarkets. Interest in them is still growing; for example, last year 85 percent of orders contained at least one organic product, which tells us that we’re on the right track,” says Patrick Gotzler, CEO of Bringmeister.
But it’s not just about a broad range of organic products – under its new owner, Bringmeister has set an ambitious goal: to become a leader in sustainability on the German market, which fits into Rockaway Capital’s long-term strategy of following ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) principles, which take into account the impact of business on the environment, society, and the company itself. By 2030, Bringmeister wants to achieve complete carbon neutrality and is also concentrating on waste-free operation and placing great emphasis on the sale of local products.
“We want our customers to know that we’re constantly looking for new ways to achieve ecological sustainability. We are, for example, working with a partner who processes food we no longer able to sell, thanks to which we’ve reduced food wastage to almost zero. During delivery, we offer “eco-routes”, which reduce emissions by minimizing the distance between individual stops. And all this is just the beginning,” adds Gotzler.
Another long-term objective that Rockaway Capital has set for Bringmeister is to also become the leader on the German market in terms of regional coverage and revenue. By the end of this year, Bringmeister should a year-over-year tripling of the number of orders, and will also be preparing for expansion to more German cities – it will enter additional markets in German next year, and within five years Bringmeister should be operating in all key cities throughout Germany. “We’re convinced that Bringmeister has the best potential to fulfil this ambition in Germany,” adds Jakub Havrlant.
ABOUT BRINGMEISTER
Bringmeister is an on-line grocery supermarket in Berlin, Potsdam, and Munich. Its catalogue contains more than 20,000 items, with an extensive selection of regional and organic products. It offers same-day delivery from Monday to Saturday between 6 a.m. and midnight – orders are always fresh, chilled, and delivered directly from the warehouse. Minimum order value is € 40. For more information see www.bringmeister.de.
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