Ocado review

Ocado is an online-only grocer, and is the only supermarket we've reviewed that doesn't have any bricks-and-mortar stores.

In our latest supermarkets survey, 99 Ocado customers rated the online retailer on everything from delivery slots and drivers to food quality and value for money. 

This enabled us to work out star ratings for different factors as well as an overall customer score.

Is Ocado's online delivery service any good?

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How does Ocado work?

Having been set up as an online-only grocer from when it was founded in 2000, Ocado arguably has a technological edge over its competitors. 

It even uses robots to pick and pack some shopping. Designed to mimic the human hand, the bots whizz around on gridded tracks and use their grippers to collect the items in your order. They know the weight, size and shape of different products, and are programmed to put heavy items at the bottom, meaning less chance of your bottles and cans squashing your fruit and bread. 

Ocado claims that being able to avoid using stores, where other shoppers might buy the items you ordered online, makes the supply chain shorter and more tightly controlled.

How fresh is the food in Ocado deliveries?

We went undercover to find out how the different supermarkets compare for freshness, using a team of mystery shoppers to order more than 1,000 groceries in the first – and biggest – comparison of its kind in August 2021.

During the course of the investigation, our mystery shoppers took delivery of items from various supermarkets that were already out of date by the time they were delivered, groceries that were within their use-by date but looked too manky to eat and one item with a completely illegible use-by date.

Log in or join Which? to discover which supermarkets will deliver the freshest produce – and which ones could leave you with past-it produce that's dangerous to eat. 

How safe is Ocado in the pandemic?

Ocado has put a number of Covid-19 measures in place to keep its customers safe. At the time of publishing this page (February 2022), all its drivers are asked to wear face coverings and put your groceries on your doorstep rather than bringing them inside.

You can return unwanted items during your delivery and if you decide you don't want any substitute items afterwards you can request a refund online.

Ocado will collect carrier bags and wine boxes for recycling.

Ocado in the news

In October 2021, Ocado announced that it would trial driverless deliveries in London with British start-up Wayve along with Asda. Wayve has plans to expand beyond London in the future and has already trialed its technology in five other UK cities.

Also in October 2021, despite improvements in the availability of Ocado's delivery slots after problems at the start of the pandemic, some customers were angry after being unable to secure a delivery slot for Christmas when the first ones were released.

Ocado also hit the headlines in July 2021 when three of its robots collided and caused a fire at one of its fulfilment centres. This followed another fire back in 2019, which completely destroyed Ocado's Andover distribution centre.

Ocado's plastic packaging

In April 2019, we investigated how much supermarket plastic packaging is recyclable. We ordered 46 of the most popular own-brand items from 11 major UK supermarket chains and found 52% of Ocado's packaging, by item, was widely recyclable at the kerbside.

We also looked into how accurately the packaging in our basket was labelled for recycling advice. We found 44% of Ocado packaging was correctly labelled. See how Ocado compared with other supermarkets and find out more about supermarket plastic packaging.

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