Ocado orders cancelled as fire rips through Andover warehouse

Fire that broke out on Tuesday night at the 22,300 square metre warehouse was believed to have been contained

Ocado's Andover automated warehouse has suffered "substantial damage" as a result of a fire that broke out at 2.44 am on Tuesday morning - with part of the roof collapsing as a result of the fire. The site accounts for 10 per cent of the company's capacity in the UK, with orders either being rescheduled or cancelled as a result.

However, orders for Morrisons that are also handled by Ocado's complex at Andover are not believed to have been affected as they are run from a separate 'spoke' at Andover.

No-one has been hurt as a result of the fire, although four fire fighters have been treated in hospital for minor smoke inhalation, according to the BBC.

According to Hampshire Fire and Rescue, as many as 200 firefighters were involved in tackling the incident on Tuesday, with 70 on site today as the fire has been brought under control. "The fire in the robot-run distribution centre is now under control and it is no longer a major incident," Hampshire Fire and Rescue claimed earlier today.

Ocado had claimed yesterday that the fire had been brought under control and contained in the section in which it started. This morning, though, the company was forced to issue a statement admitting that most of the building and its contents had been damaged.

"Unfortunately the fire which started yesterday morning in a corner of the ambient grid was not contained as we believed, and last night expanded. Whilst we are informed by the Fire Brigade that it is now under control, during the night part of the roof collapsed and there has been substantial damage to the majority of the building and its contents," the company claimed in a regulatory statement this morning.

As a result, Ocado admitted that it will struggle to meet growing customer demand and that the company will post a reduction in sales growth until it "can increase capacity elsewhere" - an admission that indicates that the Andover warehouse will be out of action for some time.

The company added that it has comprehensive insurance for the property, stock, equipment and "business interruption losses".

The fire started on the same day that the company reported a combination of sales growth and widening losses in its financial year to the end of December 2018. It reported a pre-tax loss of £44.4 million compared to a loss of £9.8 million in 2017. The company attributed the widening loss to increased spending on investment, including new warehouses and IT systems.

However, sales rose by 12.3 per cent to £1.59 billion and the company increased its customer base by 11.8 per cent, taking the total to 721,000. Ocado is looking forward to benefiting from the roll-out of its deal with supermarket chain Kroger in the US. It also has deals in place in Canada and France, as well as Morrisons in the UK.

^{Image, above, copyright of Hampshire Fire and Rescure}