14 Facts About Ocado Group

Ocado Group is a British business which licenses grocery technology based in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England.

Ocado Group was floated on the London Stock Exchange on 21 July 2010, and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index.

Ocado Group was founded in April 2000 by Jonathan Faiman, Jason Gissing and Tim Steiner, former merchant bankers with Goldman Sachs.

Ocado Group was launched in January 2000 as a concept and started trading as a business in partnership with Waitrose in January 2002.

In 2015, Ocado Group launched the first grocery app for the Apple Watch.

Related searches

In 2015 Ocado Group launched the Ocado Group Smart Platform, its proprietary end-to-end solution for operating retail businesses online.

In January 2018, Ocado Group completed negotiations for an Ocado Group Smart Platform deal with Canada's second largest supermarket chain Sobeys, owned by Empire Company.

Ocado Group's products included own brand groceries from the Waitrose supermarket chain until September 2020, when Ocado Group launched a joint venture with Marks and Spencer.

Since January 2014, Ocado Group have provided the website, warehousing and delivery services for one of their main grocery rivals Morrisons supermarkets, allowing them to operate online using Ocado Group's network of depots to deliver Morrisons groceries to online customers.

Morrisons made an initial capital payment of up to £170m to Ocado Group to acquire the Dordon site and associated mechanical handling equipment, as well as a licence and integration fee.

Ocado Group's warehouses are built with a giant 3D grid structure inside, within which groceries are stored in crates.

Ocado Group Technology was involved in two EU-funded Horizon 2020 robotics research projects: SecondHands and SOMA and continues to experiment with robotics for automating picking and packing of grocery orders.

Ocado Group has six technology development centres in Europe: Hatfield and London in the UK; Krakow and Wroclaw in Poland; Sofia in Bulgaria; Barcelona in Spain.

Jez Frampton, CEO of Interbrand and non-executive director of Ocado Group, claims the name "Ocado Group" is "a made-up word, intended to evoke fresh fruit".