Ocado's First Robotic Warehouse In Asia Starts Operation For Japanese Partner Aeon

JAKARTA - British online supermarket and technology group Ocado announced on Monday, July 10 that its first robotic warehouse in Asia, built for its Japanese partner, Aeon, has started operations.

Warehouses, or customer fulfillment centers (CFCs) as Ocado calls them, have started taking orders from customers across the Kanto region for Aeon's "Green Beans" brand.

Ocado partnered with Aeon in 2019 in a deal that anticipates the Japanese group will have an online merchandise sales capacity of around 600 billion yen ($4.4 billion) by 2030 and 1 trillion yen ($107.6 trillion) by 2035.

Ocado said Aeon's second CFC in Japan will be based in Hachioji, Tokyo, with more to follow.

"Asia's grocery spending is expected to exceed that of any other region of the world in the next decade, and online sales remain the fastest growing channel of merchandise trade across the Asia Pacific region," said Ocado CEO Tim Steiner.

Ocado shares are down 34% in the past year but jumped as much as 47% on June 22 after the Times newspaper reported a possible takeover interest from Amazon.com.