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Ocado Group (“Ocado”) announced today the launch of the first Ocado Customer Fulfilment Centre (CFC) in North America. Empire’s new online grocery home delivery service, Voilà by Sobeys (Voilà), will begin testing orders today through its state-of-the-art CFC in Vaughan, Ontario. Voilà’s phased rollout to customers across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) will begin when testing is successfully completed.

The site in Ontario is the second international Ocado CFC to go live since the beginning of March 2020. It comes as Ocado Solutions continues to make progress with partners worldwide, and builds activity with live partners to support them in feeding communities at a time of huge demand for online grocery.

Luke Jensen, CEO of Ocado Solutions, said

“This is a milestone moment for Ocado Solutions. Within almost a month, we have brought two international CFCs live and on-time with partners in Canada and France. These are testament to the amazing working partnerships we have developed, particularly under recent challenging circumstances with Covid-19.”

“Of course, the current implications for the whole grocery retail sector of adapting to new and unprecedented demand also throw these launches into sharp relief.”

“As Sobeys' first CFC builds capacity and extends to reach households across the Greater Toronto Area, it will be instrumental in bringing Ocado’s world-beating quality of service to customers in Canada for the first time. Next stop in Canada is the CFC to launch in the province of Quebec and Ottawa area.”

Sarah Joyce, SVP for Ecommerce, Empire said

“As Ocado’s exclusive Canadian partner, our robotic automated warehouses will set us apart with a higher quality service experience for Canadians. Online grocery home delivery is an essential service – one that’s needed now more than ever before. We are thrilled to bring Voilà by Sobeys to the GTA and do our part to help Canadians in this challenging time.”

Notes to Editors

About Ocado Group

Ocado Group is a UK based company admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange (Ticker OCDO). It comprises Ocado Solutions and a 50 per cent share in Ocado Retail, a joint venture with M&S in the UK, trading as Ocado.com. Underpinned by Ocado’s proven expertise and experience as a dedicated online grocer in the UK for almost two decades, Ocado Solutions now provides the Ocado Smart Platform (OSP) as a service to retailers around the world. OSP comprises an end-to-end service inclusive of access to Ocado’s physical infrastructure solutions, running highly efficient warehouse operations for the single pick of products, together with the proprietary software applications required to operate a world class online grocery business.

Contacts

Ocado

Jamie Kerr, Head of Communications, Ocado Solutions, on 01707 228 000 (jamie.kerr@ocado.com)

Martin Robinson at Tulchan Communications, on 020 7353 4200

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Ocado Announces Launch of First CFC in North America