Ocado

An Ocado delivery in progress

Ocado is an internet grocery retailer based in the UK.

It sells products from the Waitrose supermarket chain as well as some of its own goods and distributes them to homes nationwide. It operates its business from a purpose-built picking centre.

Ocado is partly owned by the John Lewis Partnership, which owns Waitrose, but it is an independent business.

History

The company was founded by a group of former Goldman Sachs merchant bankers (Jonathan Faiman, Jason Gissing and Tim Steiner). They built the company from scratch: initially designing, developing and operating every aspect of the business themselves. Over the last 8 years the company has grown from 3 people to over 3,000.

In September 2006, Michael Grade became non-executive chairman of Ocado, shortly after Goldman Sachs were appointed as financial advisors. This has led to perennial speculation that the business will seek a listing on the stock market.

Ocado is believed to have losses of about £30 million for the 2007 fiscal year, bringing its total losses to approximately £300 million. Its executives have said that they expect it to become profitable by the end of 2008, and possibly to float and seek a stock-market listing.

Innovation

Recently Ocado announced it would take back all plastic bags and recycle them locally into new Ocado plastic bags.

Name

The name Ocado is a made up word. According to non-executive director of Ocado, Jez Frampton (CEO of Interbrand), the name Ocado was meant to be evocative of fresh fruit. The avocado is the hardest fruit to protect through the food chain. Frampton said the name scored "off the scale" when tested with potential consumers.

References

1. "Online supermarket Ocado delivers £30m loss", 'The Telegraph', March 9, 2008

External links

• Official site