Online supermarket group Picnic booked a profit in the last four weeks of last year, partly due to its robotized distribution centre in Utrecht, director Michiel Muller has told the Financieele Dagblad.

Muller did not say how much profit the company made but said if the company continues to perform as well this year, it will book gross profit (ebitda) of €4 million. It might be a modest amount, he said, “but we have always said we first want to grow quickly and then automate.”

The positive figures are unconnected with the year-end festivities, he said. “Christmas is good because you have a lot of sales in a couple of days, but it also brings problems and extra costs.”

Picnic, which has no physical shops, has been delivering groceries in the Netherlands since 2015. It has since expanded into Germany and France.

Last year the company booked a loss of almost €221 million, on net sales of €1.2 billion.

In 2021, it raised €600m from a variety of investors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to finance its international expansion.