Andrea Felsted, Columnist

Time for the Ocado Robots to Deliver the Goods

With favorable trading conditions at home and opportunities abroad, Ocado has still its work cut out to meet soaring expectations.

July 14, 2020 at 10:56 AM UTC

By Andrea Felsted

Andrea Felsted is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering consumer goods and the retail industry. Previously, she was a reporter for the Financial Times.

No time for spinning the wheels at Ocado.

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Investors have their first snapshot of what Ocado Group Plc’s trading looks like in exceptionally favorable trading conditions for its online supermarket business.

Its core customer-facing retail business, now a joint venture with Marks & Spencer Group Plc, lifted sales by 27% in the six months to May 31. The frantic buying of groceries driven by the pandemic began about halfway through the period, and so isn’t fully reflected in the numbers. Sales were running about 40% up going into the second half of the financial year.