Fire breaks out at Ocado's hi-tech Andover warehouse

Ocado’s state-of-the-art fulfilment centre in Hampshire has been shut down following a fire, the online grocery specialist announced on Tuesday.

The fire broke out in the ambient section of the Andover warehouse in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The FTSE 100 company said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange, released at 1pm GMT, that the Fire Brigade remained on site, although there were no reported injuries. It is understood that the fire was ongoing.

An Ocado spokesperson added: “The incident and the measures being taken to contain it appears to have affected a proportion of the mechanical handling equipment and some of the grid.

“Although some orders have already left the warehouse before the incident and will be delivered as normal, Andover suspended operation this morning preventing further fulfilment of orders.”

There was no indication when order fulfilment would resume. Instead, the company said it would assess the damage and “update further as appropriate”.

This is the view from outside the #OcadoFire in #Andover today. More than 20 engines and support vehicles are on the scene @Ocado pic.twitter.com/9m58ndYWwW

— Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service (@Hants_fire) February 5, 2019

The fully-automated, 240,000 square foot centre, which is powered by proprietary software and hardware, is able to complete an average order of 50 items in a matter of minutes. It processes around 65,000 orders each week.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ocado reported a pre-tax loss of £44.4m in 2018, because of increased investment in its Solutions arm, while revenues rose 12% to £1.48bn.