Ocado was established by
Jonathan Faiman,
Jason Gissing and
Tim Steiner, former
merchant bankers with
Goldman Sachs, as L. M. Solutions, in January 2000. Ocado started trading as a business in partnership with
Waitrose, part of the
John Lewis Partnership, in January 2002. In September 2006,
Michael Grade became non-executive chairman of Ocado. In November 2008, the
John Lewis Partnership transferred its shareholding of 29% into its staff pension fund. In May 2010 the John Lewis Partnership entered into a 10-year branding and supply agreement with Ocado. In February 2011, the John Lewis pension fund sold off its entire Ocado shareholding. On 13 July 2009, Ocado released its first app for the
iPhone. The app, called 'Ocado on the Go', allows users to do their grocery shopping without the need for a PC. On 19 April 2010, the company extended the app to
Android devices. In July 2010, Ocado undertook a stock market
Initial public offering. In January 2014, Ocado started providing website, warehousing and delivery services for one of their main grocery rivals,
Morrisons supermarkets, allowing them to operate online using Ocado's network of depots to deliver Morrisons groceries to online customers. On 14 June 2014, the company changed its name from L. M. Solutions to Ocado Retail. In 2015, Ocado launched the Ocado Smart Platform, its proprietary end-to-end solution for operating retail businesses online. The company went on to sell the platform to the French
Casino Group in November 2017, to the Canadian supermarket chain
Sobeys in January 2018, to the US retail company
Kroger in May 2018, and to the Australian retail business
Coles Group in May 2020. In the early morning of 5 February 2019, Ocado's customer fulfilment centre (CFC) in
Andover, Hampshire, which handles 10 per cent of its fulfilments, caught fire. The fire continued to burn the following day, engaging more than 25 fire engines and 300 firefighters from multiple fire services, as far as Kent. A 500-metre exclusion zone was set up and residents as far as away were to be evacuated as a precaution. The fire burned for more than 3 days, with the roof collapsing in the process. The fire was found to have started due a fault in a battery charging unit, and was exacerbated by worker responses. The warehouse was rebuilt, and was operational by August 2021. Part of the amount to be paid by M&S depended on the performance of the joint venture in the years up to and including 2023. Ocado ceased selling
own brand groceries from the Waitrose supermarket chain in September 2020. == Activities ==