Ocado has reported a spike in full-year sales as demand for online grocery during the pandemic jumped in what boss Tim Steiner says is a permanent shift in consumer shopping habits.

The online grocery retailer reported a pre-tax loss of £44m in the 52 weeks to November 29 compared with £215m the previous year.

The etailer’s group EBITDA during the period surged 69% to £73m as group sales climbed 33% to £2.3bn.

Ocado’s retail revenue jumped 35% year on year to £2.2bn, while its UK solutions and logistics arm rose 14% to £654m as the retailer ploughed investment into its capacity and technology during the pandemic.

The online grocery retailer opened its first international customer fulfilment centres during the year – for Casino in Paris in April, followed by another in Toronto in May for Sobeys.

Fees invoiced to Ocado’s international solutions partners rose more than 52% year on year to £124m, bringing the total of unrecognised fees in the group’s results to £256m.

Ocado also opened its first Ocado Zoom micro site in west London during the period ahead of schedule, with a further dozen sites planned within the M25 to support the group’s growth ambitions, alongside a mini customer fulfilment centre in Bristol set to open in the group’s first quarter of its current financial year.

Chief executive Tim Steiner said: “The rapid acceleration of many pre-existing trends in business and society has been a feature of the Covid-19 crisis and the dramatic channel shift in grocery is a clear example of this. The landscape for food retailing is changing, for good. 

“As we look ahead to a post-vaccine world and a return to a new normality, Ocado Group is very well placed to enable our grocery partners worldwide to bring the best customer experience to market, responsibly, with high levels of hygiene and superior, sustainable and proven economics.

“We also look forward to welcoming shortly both a new chairman and CFO, and the fresh perspectives they will bring on our growth opportunities. With Kroger’s first CFC set to go-live in H1, and seven of our nine partners likely to be on the Ocado Smart Platform by the end of the year, we are very excited to be ever closer to our ambition of changing the way the world shops.”

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