Snowstorms cost Ocado £1.5m sales

OCADO suffered a £1.5m hit to sales earlier this month after the ‘Beast from the East’ brought thousands of deliveries to a standstill.

The online supermarket’s drivers struggled to reach customers as heavy snow hit the UK, with orders in Oxford, Bristol and Kent suffering most.

The firm said affected sales were equivalent to almost 1pc of sales over the quarter.

Ocado deliberately reduced the number of delivery slots to prepare for the weather, with heavy traffic meaning its drivers could only fulfil so many orders.

It also cancelled a number of deliveries on the roads when drivers couldn’t reach customers and was forced to make cancellations when some of its distribution centres were cut off.

Despite the weather, sales at the group increased by 11.7pc to £363.4m in the 13 weeks to March 4, a similar rate of growth to the same period a year earlier.

Duncan Tatton-Brown, chief financial officer, said: ‘I’ve never seen weather like that in the five years I’ve been here. Despite that weather we delivered to 296,000 customers so we’re really pleased with the work our guys did.’