Ocado has struck a joint venture with partner Groupe Casino that means it can offer its technology to other grocers in France and pick from the group’s stores.
The venture releases Ocado from its previous exclusivity agreement with Casino and allows it to explore other partnership opportunities in France.
Casino was Ocado’s first international partner after they signed an agreement in 2017 but the partnership has only yielded a single tech-powered warehouse in the Greater Paris region.
As part of the joint venture, Ocado will roll out its in-store picking software across Casino Monoprix, which has 700 stores across France.
An Ocado spokeswoman said the venture would allow Ocado Solutions to offer its software and hardware logistics services, as well as its robotic customer fulfilment centres, to all grocers in France.
The joint venture also gives Ocado the option to buy shares in Octopia, Casino’s marketplace platform.
Ocado co-founder and chief executive Tim Steiner said: “The online grocery channel in France has reached an inflection point with a huge rise in demand for compelling, affordable and efficient grocery ecommerce propositions.
“Our growing partnership and live operations in Île-de-France have set the highest bar for the experience French consumers can expect in online grocery.
“This announcement marks a deepening of the relationship between Groupe Casino and Ocado Group, and it will further support the capital-light expansion of our partnership into other French regions. For the first time, it will also open up the whole of the French grocery market to Ocado’s solutions.
“Additionally, by integrating the Octopia marketplace into our end-to-end smart platform, we are bringing more proven, market-leading flexibility to our partners’ online ecosystems.”
Ocado said there would be no initial capital costs for the joint venture and any future warehouse costs would be in line with other agreements it has in place with its partners.
Analysts at Numis said a possible Octopia partnership “looks to enhance the non-food offering to Ocado Solutions clients, which, while less differentiated than grocery, strengthens the OS proposition and should be a helpful ancillary income stream, which has been unlocked by the latest series of Ocado Solutions developments”.
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