Online grocery specialist Ocado Group PLC (LON:OCDO) has revealed that the fire that burned one of its high-tech depots to the ground was sparked when a robot was set alight by a faulty battery charger.
An investigation into the February blaze at its Andover site, which raged for three-and-a-half days and resulted in significant damage to most of the building and its contents, found that a “first generation” battery charging unit had ignited the plastic lid on one of the robots that ferry groceries around its newer warehouses. Andover is the second newest of Ocado’s four ‘customer fulfilment centres’.
READ: Ocado shares rise as Andover warehouse fire has smaller-than-expected impact on revenue
The FTSE 100 group said that these battery chargers are not used at its other CFCs and that it has now removed the plastic lid from its ‘bots’ as it “serves no practical purpose and its removal has not impacted the efficiency of the bots in any way”. Additional localised smoke detectors have also been installed.
Ocado, which released details of the ongoing investigation being carried out alongside its insurers and the Hampshire Fire Service as part of a shareholder update released on Friday, said initial assessment of the origins of the fire gave the board confidence that there are no significant implications of the viability of the group’s business model. The company has seen its shares soar in value since it began to win a handful of potentially lucrative deals with overseas supermarket chains to licence out its technology and services.
As well as the temporary logistics ‘spoke’ set up in Andover to provide grocery deliveries to the area, the company said it “has plans that it is working on to provide more CFC capacity”, including ramping up capacity “faster than envisaged” at the newest depot at Erith in south-east London.
Directors have begun working out the best means of rebuilding Andover and said they will soon inform investors about their plans to replace capacity in both the short and medium term and the impact that these plans will have on its retail arm’s target to grow revenue 10%-15% this year.