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Once an innovative online-only grocery retailer, Ocado now provides the sophisticated hardware driving Retail 2.0.

Riding high on 2020 profits, Ocado has made two robotics acquisitions, bolstering its advanced warehouse automation technology
Faith in the firm’s technology saw it overtake Tesco as the highest-valued UK grocery retailer earlier this year, despite much smaller market-share
In the US, retail giant Walmart made the decision not to renew a long-standing contract with robotics firm Bossa Nova

For a taste of Ocado’s robotics prowess, you’d need only a glimpse into the online-only retailer’s warehouse ‘hive’ in Andover, UK, where a football pitch-sized grid of boxy robots on rails criss-cross just hairs’ widths from one another hundreds of times per second.

Bossa Nova Robotics will show its retail robot that can scan a 40-foot supermarket aisle in 60 seconds, capturing 4,000 images that it turns into inventory reports with help from its NVIDIA Turing architecture RTX GPU. Walmart plans to use the bots in at least 650 of its stores. As an engineer at established and startup companies D. Martin, Blade Diagnostics Corporation, National Robotics Engineering Center, and Bossa Nova Robotics, I have demonstrated motivation and a.

The automated warehouses can process 3.5 million items or 65,000 orders every week – not only are they very good at what they do, but (despite the upfront expense), they are cheaper and more efficient than a human workforce.

From retailer to tech giant

In recent years, Ocado has transitioned from being an innovative, tech-first online grocery retailer, to a full-scale provider of e-commerce and fulfillment technology for the retail industry.

The firm now describes itself as a “technology-led, global, software and robotics platform business, with a strong retail heritage.”

In 2019, approximately 33% of Ocado’s revenue came from its solutions business and this is expected to increase due to the number of new partnerships it’s formed both domestically and internationally.

Earlier this year, despite holding just a fraction of the UK grocery market share, investor faith in the firm’s advanced retail technology saw Ocado overtake Tesco as the country’s highest-valued grocery retailer.

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Winging it during a pandemic

Covid-19 has caused a seismic shift in the grocery sector since the strict government-imposed lockdowns are forcing many consumers to shop for their groceries online. Like any large shifts in consumer behavior, there are winners and there are losers.

Ocado is firmly in the winner’s camp, coming out as one of the best performing publicly listed UK companies overall during the pandemic. That extra cash-flow is enabling it to innovate and grow further.

Although its automated warehouseshad trouble keeping pace with a surge in demand during March and April, the company soon recovered, in part by adding more warehouse workers and delivery drivers.

Last year, Ocado formed a 50:50 joint venture with Marks & Spencers to provide an online grocery platform for the UK market.

In addition, Ocado has increased its international partnerships which now includes seven grocery retailers such as Kroger’s in the US and Coles in Australia. Ocado is also trialing its Ocado Zoom service in London which will serve customers with rapid online deliveries using what it calls mini-sized Centralized Fulfillment Centers (Mini-CFCs).

While Ocado has doubled-down on robotics investments, this week Walmart decided not to extend its contract with Bossa Nova Robotics, whose robots the retailer had used to replace shopfloor works for inventory checks. According to Wall Street Journal, the decision may come down the rise of online shopping freeing up more staff to perform the same tasks.

10 February 2021

Bossa Nova’s inventory control robot operating inside a Walmart store. | Credit: Bossa Nova

Bossa Nova Robotics, the Mountain View, Calif.-based developer of inventory control robots for retailers, recently shut down its European business unit. Headquartered in Sheffield, U.K., Bossa Nova Robotics Europe had its funding cut off from the parent company. Bossa Nova Robotics Europe is in the Administration phase, the U.K.’s equivalent to Chapter 11.

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In November 2020, Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, abruptly ended its partnership with Bossa Nova Robotics. This was a significant reversal from plans announced in January 2020 to expand deployments of Bossa Nova’s robots from 500 to 1,000 stores. Walmart said it had “found different, sometimes simpler solutions that proved just as useful.” According to The Wall Street Journal, this forced Bossa Nova Robotics to reduce its workforce by 50%.

According to this “Notice of Administrator’s Proposals” (PDF) obtained by The Robot Report, the fallout with Walmart and COVID-19 played a major role in the closing of European division. After late-stage pilots with “several major UK retailers” and “advanced discussions with a major retailer to begin multi-store trials,” the European unit had its financial agreement with the parent company renewed in February 2020 for another two years.

Then COVID-19 hit. Here are some details from the Notice of Administrator’s Proposals:

“By the end of February 2020, the COVID-19 [crisis] was rapidly developing and ultimately classified as a global pandemic. The pandemic had an immediate impact on the retail industry with many retails seeing changes in demand and having to adapt to government imposed restrictions, as a result, many USA customers withdrew their orders. With uncertain trading conditions and a significant decline in demand, the [parent company] made the decision [to] cease all funding with immediate effect, accordingly, [Bossa Nova Robotics Europe’s] new finance agreement was withdrawn.”

The European operation continued with a reduced workforce over the next six months. But with mounting debt being owed to creditors and no turnaround in sight, it was determined the business was no longer sustainable. According to the Notice of Administrator’s Proposals, it lost £1,036,147 for the year ended 31 December 2019 and £466,705 for the 7-month period ended 31 December 2018. The 10 employees working at the U.K. office were eliminated.

According to the Notice of Administrator’s Proposals, one of three objectives is to be carried out if a company enters administration:

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Rescuing the company
Achieving a better financial outcome for creditor’s than would have been possible without entering administration
Distributing property and assets to one or more creditors

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According to the document, the only possible objective in this case is to distribute the remaining assets to creditors. This is due in part to the “extent of historic liabilities.” Bossa Nova Robotics Europe was incorporated on May 23 2018. The U.K. office opened in October 2018.

The Robot Report reached out to Red Mckay, who was managing director, Europe, of Bossa Nova Robotics from April 2018 until November 2020. The Robot Report also reached out to Sarjoun Skaff, CEO of parent company Bossa Nova Robotics. Neither have responded, but this story will be updated if new information becomes available.

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Brad Bogolea, co-founder and CEO of Simbe Robotics, a competitor of Bossa Nova, was a recent guest on The Robot Report Podcast. The discussion analyzes the abrupt ending of Bossa Nova’s relationship with Walmart and discusses the future prospects for robotics in retail. Brad also shared what lessons the Walmart partnership provides for robotics developers and startups. You can listen to the podcast below.

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