Category Management - Future Leaders Graduate Program

In a nutshell

What’s it like to manage the commercial engine of Europe’s fastest-growing online supermarket? At Picnic, we don't just buy products - we redefine how food reaches millions of homes by building smarter assortments, negotiating hard with global brands, and launching our own Private Label lines. 🥑🥐🍎

As part of our Category Management - Future Leaders Graduate Program, you’ll take full end-to-end commercial ownership from day one. You’ll sit at the intersection of quantitative analysis, supplier negotiations, and product strategy.

What you will actually do

This is not a rotation program or an advisory role. You won't just recommend what to sell - you will own the P&L of your category and execute every step yourself:

Category Strategy & Improvement Plans: Build and execute clear commercial roadmaps for your category - analyzing performance gaps, setting growth targets, and continually balancing customer experience, gross margin, and long-term category health.

Supplier Negotiation: Prepare and lead negotiations that secure the best terms. From initial outreach to signed contracts, you'll own the process end-to-end

Data-Driven Assortment Strategy: Dive deep into customer purchase data, elasticity models, and unit economics to prune underperforming SKUs and introduce winning products.

Private Label Development:Collaborate on the creation of Picnic’s own products - from sustainable packaging and pricing to quality checks and market positioning

Margin & Price Execution: Continuously monitor cost changes, inflation impacts, and competitor pricing to protect margins while keeping Picnic unbeatable on price.

Cross-Functional Rigor: Partner with supply chain, design, and analytics teams to align commercial goals with operational excellence.

Your superpowers

We set a high bar. We look for top-tier candidates who combine sharp quantitative thinking with a natural commercial drive and zero hesitation to pick up the phone and negotiate.

Finishing (or recently finished) an Msc in Business, Economics, Finance, Econometrics, Supply Chain, Food Retail, or a related field (0–1 year of full-time work experience)

Practical experience gained via internships, student organizations, or extracurricular activities is mandatory - in fast-moving, high-intensity environments

Comfortable working with complex data to drive tangible business outcomes, whether that’s uncovering growth levers or building a winning negotiation strategy.

You enjoy negotiating. You hold your ground with experienced suppliers, build long-term value, and back up your positions with hard data.

You don't hand off contract administration, cost recalculations, or SKU setups to someone else - you execute every detail of your strategy yourself.

You constantly ask "Why does this product cost X to produce?" and "Why are we not carrying category Y?"

Fluent in English (Dutch or German is a strong advantage for local supplier negotiations).

Not sure which track fits you best?

Choose Category Management if you are driven by products, supplier negotiations, unit economics, and food trends.

Choose Strategy if you are driven by app user behavior, digital storefront optimization, and campaign execution.

Choose Analytics if you are driven by solving complex business problems, data modeling, and technical implementation.

Picnic perks

🥗Fresh Lunch, coffee, and snacks

Our offices are equipped with fully-fledged coffee bars and a kitchen and chefs. They prepare delicious fresh and warm lunches every day so you can keep your energy up.

🚴🏼‍♂️Health insurance discount & bike plan

We have a partnership with CZ (a health insurance provider). Picnic employees get a discount on CZ insurance packages between 5% and 15%. Furthermore, through our partnership with Lease a Bike, you can rent-to-own a new (e)bike at a discounted rate

✍🏼 Learning & development

You’ll get ample opportunity to work on yourself at Picnic. We offer personal development through Lepaya courses, Academy trainings, and more. Interested in improving your mental wellbeing? Through OpenUp you get free access to trained psychologists and many courses.

All the rest

At Picnic you get 25 holidays, we cover your travel expenses and offer a pension plan. And your phone and laptop are on us, as well.

A bit about us

When you join Picnic, you’re joining the shopping revolution, delivering groceries to millions of people across Europe, and we’re growing fast. Think super fresh products and personal service, but in a modern, sustainable way. And we’re the only ones in the world doing it all by ourselves. From our fully automated fulfillment centre to delivery algorithms and marketing campaigns: we do it all in-house. Our team consists of 85+ nationalities and we’re always looking for new talent. Ready for the ride?

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Recruitment Process

CV screening

Phone screening

Online assessment

Interviews

Assessment day

Closing interview

Offer

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Commitment to equal opportunities

Picnic is an equal opportunity employer—this means that all decisions regarding applications will be based on qualifications and merit. Applicants will be regarded independently of age, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, skin color, civil status, religious beliefs, physical or mental disability, or any other factors protected by law.
At Picnic, we celebrate and value our differences and are committed to building a safe and inclusive working environment where everyone can be themselves.

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Our Mentality

At Picnic, we build from scratch with an owner’s mindset. We dive into the unknown, taking end-to-end responsibility for every outcome, going the extra mile to tackle complex challenges. We turn insights into action, working as a team to get things done. We move fast, never compromising on quality or long-term impact. With grit and commitment we build what has never been built before!

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Get in touch with our recruiters

Maja Wolf - Recruiter

Graduate Programs

📍 Düsseldorf

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