Former employee John Williams remembers working at the original warehouse in Hatfield more than 20 years ago when the company was “tinkering” with robotic systems.
At the time, Ocado Group was out on its own, pioneering the not-so-popular idea of online supermarket shopping.
“They had a sophisticated-looking connecting system – like a robotic trolley – that went around by itself,” he recalled.
“It was regarded as the automatic shopper, but it didn’t quite work. It had to be loaded by people.”
He worked in the unloading team until 2004, and said at the time, it was not yet clear that robots could one day “replace us”.