Berlin – They are called Gorillas, Flink, Wolt or Foodpanda and are recommended as the supermarkets in smartphone format. Groceries can be ordered from them with a touchscreen tip. Deliveries are often made within a few minutes. Berlin is the most important market in Germany for this business. This is where newcomers start and try to grow. There are now an estimated well over 7,000 couriers for the new grocery delivery services in the city alone. For comparison: Rewe employs almost 6,000 people in its 150 Berlin supermarkets. And now the beverage supplier in a bottle is also entering the business with frozen pizza and fresh apples.
Delivery throughout Berlin
In the past few weeks, the company had upgraded its three depots in Tempelhof, Charlottenburg and Hohenschönhausen for this purpose. From there, deliveries are to be made to almost the entire city area. “You don’t have to live in Torstrasse to be able to use our offer,” says a spokesman. In addition, you deliver more than just toothpaste and new diapers, you can take over the entire week’s shopping.
According to its own information, message in a bottle has a total of 3500 items in its range. 500 products come straight from the fresh food counter. Delivery takes place two hours after the order has been placed at the latest. There is no delivery fee; but a minimum order value of 25 euros. 1,500 employees have message in a bottle in Berlin. The local fleet consists of 400 vans. “Our proven logistics concept only had to be adjusted minimally,” says Stephen Weich, head of the message in a bottle.
The bottle post company was founded in Münster in 2016 and was taken over by the Oetker Group in October last year for allegedly one billion euros. The pudding manufacturer had swallowed the competitor who stood in the way of its own delivery service, Durstexpress. In January, the end of Durstexpress was announced. The entire beverage delivery business was to run under the name “Message in a Bottle”. In the subsequent merger of the two companies, it was particularly hot among the more than 1000 Durstexpress employees in Berlin. Because the warehouses in Tempelhofer Teilestrasse and Gehrenseestrasse in Hohenschönhausen should be closed. The workers there were actually laid off. You have been offered the opportunity to apply to Message in a Bottle from scratch.
How many of the 500 employees affected at the time in Berlin actually switched to message in a bottle in the end, one does not want to say. Fortunately, many would have accepted this offer, it is said. Detailed figures on this would not be communicated. In fact, there is still criticism of the employment relationships, which, however, are typical of the new German retail sector. A company spokesman puts the basic hourly wage of a warehouse worker for message in a bottle at 10.10 euros. Drivers received “an average of twelve euros”, while employees reported 10.60 euros.
In addition, new employees are generally hired on a temporary basis, with the company referring to the option of the Part-Time and Temporary Employment Act “in order to be able to cushion fluctuating order levels and seasonal peaks as best as possible”. Message in a bottle has long since ceased to be a small start-up, but delivers to customers in over 180 cities, processes seven million orders per year and brings around 150,000 crates of drinks to the front door every day.
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