Ocado

Ocado is a British online supermarket. In contrast to its main competitors, the company has no chain of stores and does all home deliveries from its two warehouses. Ocado has been voted the best online supermarket in the UK by Which? readers every year since 2010. The company was floated on the London Stock Exchange on 21 July 2010 and is currently a member of the FTSE 250 Index. It has its headquarters just outside London, in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.

History

Ocado was founded in April 2000 by Jonathan Faiman, Jason Gissing and Tim Steiner, former merchant bankers with Goldman Sachs. Ocado was launched in January 2000 as a concept and started trading as a business in partnership with Waitrose in January 2002. When the company first started, Faiman, Gissing and Steiner ran every part of the business themselves.

In September 2006, Michael Grade became non-executive chairman of Ocado, shortly after Goldman Sachs were appointed as financial advisers. This led to perennial speculation that the business would seek a listing on the stock market. In July 2009 Ocado confirmed it was planning a stock market flotation.