Flash Report 5 minutesRegister for Free AccessOcado’s First Fully Automated Distribution Center Destroyed by Fire, Threatening Confidence in Its Robotics Offering Coresight Research February 13, 2019 Executive SummaryA fire devastated U.K. online grocery retailer and technology provider Ocado Group’s first robotic distribution center in Andover, England. Ocado said the Andover center handled only 10% of total capacity, but acknowledged the lost capacity would slow sales growth until the company increases capacity elsewhere. Ocado’s existing retail partners are likely to seek reassurances over safety and designs for ongoing customer fulfilment center (CFC) construction could be reviewed. These projects are typically not set to come onstream for a couple of years or more. The fire highlights the risk of the centralized distribution model, which is virtually unique to Ocado in the U.K. online grocery space; most of Ocado’s online grocery rivals in the U.K. rely heavily on in-store picking, dispersing risk of disruption among hundreds of local stores. Please Login to read the full report. Not a member? To access this content for free, register for a free account. This document was generated for Other research you may be interested in: Beauty Shopping in Focus; Economic Sentiment Turns Negative: US Consumer Survey InsightsWeekly US and UK Store Openings and Closures Tracker 2025, Week 8: US Store Closures Exceed 3,000, Up 420% Year Over YearAnalyst Corner: Constrained Consumers Could Soon “Get to the Goods” Again—Evolving In-Store Loss Prevention, with John HarmonUS Store Tracker Extra, April 2025: JD Sports and 7-Eleven Drive Total Opened Retail Space to Over 67 Million Square Feet