Ocado’s annual loss has more than quadrupled owing to widening costs including the price paid for the destruction by fire of a warehouse.
The online grocer’s pretax loss for the year to the end of December increased to £214.5m from £44.4m a year earlier. Group revenue rose by 9.9% to £1.76bn.
Ocado spent a net £88m in exceptional costs related to the fire at its warehouse in Andover, Hampshire.
However, despite the loss of capacity triggered by the Andover fire, retail revenue rose by 10.3% to £1.62bn. UK solutions and logistics revenue increased by 7.8% to £583.2m.
The fire occurred in February 2019 and destroyed the Andover warehouse building, machinery and all inventory held on site.
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