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Blog
We’ve got a rather a reputation for being passionate, maybe even outspoken, about what we do. Not just about making our business (even) greener, but about all the other things we do too, like offering great value, more choice, better service…
Our blog is one way in which we can share our thoughts and opinions with you, and hopefully give you an insight into what makes Ocado tick. We hope you find it interesting, informative… and perhaps even entertaining!
A new look for the New Year
31st December 2010
Welcome to the new-look Ocado website! You may have read my post about the first roll-out of our new design (see 'A new webshop') in November. Well, we spent the next few weeks fine-tuning, following loads of great feedback from the first set of customers to use the new website. Thank you to everyone who was involved and gave us feedback - we read every single email, tweet and post about the site as we developed it. And, excitingly, we rolled it out to everyone else earlier this week.
Posted by Jon, Head of Retail
Don't milk it
13th December 2010
The hot topic in the supermarket business at the moment is the proposed ‘mega-dairy’ in Nocton – the Lincolnshire location for a new dairy that’s designed to milk cows on a scale as yet unseen in the UK. For the past three months I’ve been talking to campaigners behind the scenes about the project, so I think it’s time I spoke up.
Posted by Jason Gissing, Ocado Co-Founder
Branching out
10th December 2010
The first snow of winter had just fallen and the ground was frozen, but last week 21 members of our HR team bravely ventured out into the (very) fresh air with one intention – to go plant some trees.
Posted by Serena Lydon, Head of Employee Engagement and Communications
Foul weather, food waste and FareShare
6rd December 2010
We had to cancel a number of orders last week due to severe weather, leaving us with a lot of undelivered groceries on our hands. Unfortunately, our Company shop - where we usually sell food that is still in date, but too close to its ‘use-by’ date to deliver to customers - was snowed in.
Posted by Jason Gissing, Ocado Co-Founder
Snow business
3rd December 2010
Just catching our breath to talk about what has been happening this week. In case you've been spared the worst of the snowy weather, some pretty horrendous conditions wrought havoc across large parts of the UK.
Posted by Jason Gissing, Ocado Co-Founder
The science of creative thinking
19th November 2010
I've been asked to write a few words about our shortlisted entry for the London Long Copy Challenge 2010, an annual competition run by CBS Outdoor to promote billboard ads with, err, more words on them...
Posted by Michael, Senior Copywriter
A new webshop
11th November 2010
As some of you might know, we’ve been hard at work for the last several months on the latest version of our webshop. Internally we call it ‘Webshop 5’, because it’s the fifth major version of our site since the business launched.
Posted by Jon, Head of Retail
In a whirl
5th November 2010
We had a whirlwind week last week – a reminder of how far we’ve come since our early days in Hemel Hempstead and an exciting glimpse of how much we’re set to achieve in the future.
Posted by Tim Steiner, CEO and Ocado Co-Founder
Going for gold
28th October 2010
I’ve just returned from this year’s Oracle World Retail Awards in Berlin clutching a rather large gold award with ‘Ocado - Etailer of the Year 2010’ stamped on it.
Posted by Tim, Ocado Co-Founder
Bigger and better
22nd October 2010
And so we take our next few steps forward, and they’re big ones! Last week, we announced the signing of a major deal to build a brand new customer fulfilment warehouse in the Midlands – just like our ‘mega-shed’ here in Hatfield.
Posted by Ben
Dig for victory
5th October 2010
With Organic Fortnight just over and the new season’s crop filling our aisles, I think it’s high time I wrote about the Soil Association and why we’re supporting their work with a link to their site from our checkout page.
Posted by Jason Gissing, Ocado Co-Founder
App-solutely fabulous
26th August 2010
There’s been a lot of talk about new supermarket apps this week but we were there at the very beginning last summer, launching our award-winning Ocado on the Go iPhone app to further advance the food shopping cause.
Posted by Ben
The Ocado IPO
22nd July 2010
Yesterday morning Ocado began life as a public company. This was a seminal moment for us all. With public ownership comes more scrutiny and comment. But with it too comes new capital to help us continue to grow and expand, to create more jobs and greater opportunities for all of our fantastic people, and to deliver more award-winning customer service. The last 10 years have rarely been easy, and our transition to a PLC was no exception.
Posted by Jason Gissing, Ocado Co-Founder
New Zealand storms it...
17th July 2010
Spain might well have beaten Holland in the World Cup final last weekend but it was New Zealand that romped to victory in Ocado’s inaugural World Recipe Challenge. Well… customer Natalie Locherer.
Posted by Ben
Above and beyond
14th July 2010
Our drivers have earned themselves a great reputation over the years, with customers frequently writing in or leaving messages on Facebook and Twitter to sing their praises. Their perseverance throughout the awful weather last winter is a shining example! Recently though, we received a letter that really left us feeling moved.
Posted by Ben
BBC Wildlife Fund
9th July 2010
It’s well-documented that I get very passionate about green initiatives. Given that my wife worked as a conservationist and is related to Arne Naess, the founder of Deep Ecology, I guess that’s not so surprising.
Posted by Jason Gissing, Ocado Co-Founder
Footy fans go foodie
18th June 2010
It may not be as sunny here as in South Africa (sadly!), but it looks like that hasn’t stopped us all getting an authentic slice of the action.
Posted by Ben
Mix and match
17th June 2010
If you’re a fan of football or good food, look out for our World Recipe Challenge. It includes 32 delicious recipes submitted by you, one for each nation in the World Cup.
Posted by Ruth
Football’s coming home
14th June 2010
Football fever got into full swing this weekend. Despite England’s indifferent start, we’ve still got our fingers (and toes) crossed for a 1966 result!
Posted by Ben
The Woodland Trust
10th June 2010
A short while ago I got talking to the Woodland Trust. As a keen green advocate, their ideas and objectives really impressed me, so this is a quick blog to share with you why I’m championing their cause.
Posted by Jason Gissing, Ocado Co-Founder
How McCartney got me going meat-free!
24th March 2010
Let’s be straight. I’m a meat-eater, I enjoy cooking meat, eating meat, and I care passionately about the quality and provenance of my meat. But it’s time to take a step back, look at the bigger picture, and tell you why, despite this, I’m throwing my support behind Meat Free Monday.
Posted by Jason Gissing, Ocado Co-Founder
Welcome to our blog
30th January 2010
By now I think you know us pretty well. Our reputation for being forthright when it comes to our values and philosophy is well deserved. We’re committed to a better, greener way of doing business, and we can’t help shouting about it!
Posted by Jason Gissing, Ocado Co-Founder
A greener offer
17th January 2010
For a while now we’ve been worrying about the potential food waste caused by multi-buy offers on perishable goods (yes, when it comes to green issues we really are that obsessed!). What good is an extra bag of apples if they’re just going to go off in the fruit bowl? It’s not much of a saving for you, and not that great for the environment either, if they just end up in the bin.
Posted by Jason Gissing, Ocado Co-Founder
New Year message 2010
1st January 2010
This time last year my co-founder Tim wrote that we had “made more improvements to our service in 2008 than in any other year”. Well, he was right, but I think we've done even more this past year!
Posted by Jason Gissing, Ocado Co-Founder
