Ocado is putting a half-acre sized robotic picking grid up for sale ahead of the closure of one of its distribution centres in Erith next year.
The automated picking system comes with close to 100 robots and can be reconfigured to fit the buyer’s own warehouse.
The system is within one of Ocado’s specialised general merchandise distribution centres, located alongside its main CFC in Erith, in south-east London.
It was installed in 2017, becoming operational the following year, to handle non-food products sold through Ocado.com such as kitchenware, homeware and small electronics.
However, advances in Ocado’s technology means these non-food products can now be handled in Ocado’s main Erith CFC, without the need for a separate facility.
Ocado workers at the site were told of the closure – planned for spring 2027 – in June. They are being transferred to the main Erith CFC in phases.
Curiously, the system on sale is an AutoStore one – a company with which Ocado was locked in a long-running legal battle over patents.
In 2023, AutoStore agreed to pay Ocado Group £200m over two years to bring an end to a three-year patent dispute between the two companies.
The robotics rivals announced a “complete settlement of all claims” in their global legal wranglings over patents “avoiding further litigation and associated costs”.
Norwegian company AutoStore in 2020 claimed Ocado’s Smart Platform system, which is used across Ocado’s highly automated warehouses, was based on its patented technology.
“Our ownership of the technology at the heart of Ocado’s warehousing system is clear,” said AutoStore CEO and president Karl Johan Lier at the time. Ocado said at the time that AutoStore’s decision to sue “was a complete waste of time – for us and them”.
The Grocer understands a site visit is being planned in a couple of weeks for potential purchases to see the system in action.
THG Fulfil extends AutoStore distributor deal
THG Ingenuity’s fulfillment service THG Fulfil has announced an expansion of its distribution partnership with AutoStore, meaning it can offer picking systems to clients through both traditional capex ownership as well as its a Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) model.
The expanded agreement gives THG Fulfil global distribution rights for the entire AutoStore product range under the capex model.
“Automation should never force brands to choose between control and cash flow,” said Tom Killeen, COO, THG Ingenuity. “Our AutoStore distribution offering was originally built around a RaaS model because, for many of our clients, protecting capital while scaling automation was the right call. But as more ambitious brands are ready to own their automation outright, we wanted to give them that option too, without losing any of the design, integration, software and operational expertise that comes with working with THG Fulfil.
“It provides CFOs with the ability to assess the merits of both a RaaS and capex route, so we can meet brands and retailers wherever they are in their automation journey,” he added.
THG Fulfil operates 796 AutoStore robots across its own fulfilment network and has integrated the AutoStore system with its own proprietary warehouse software. It has recently built an AutoStore system for Footasylum, comprising 85 AutoStore R5 robots across more than 96,000 bin locations, storing the retailer’s entire live SKU range.
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