2010年夏天，Ocado在伦敦证交所上市，估值为9.37亿英镑（按照当年汇率约合14亿美元）。在很多分析师预期里，一直赔钱的杂货店并不值这么多，上市首日公司股价下跌了10%。之后Ocado一直饱受怀疑情绪困扰，接下来10年里Ocado的股票经常像是市场上最爱卖空的股票之一，大帮基金经理在一边喝倒彩。
Even before the coronavirus, some observers were doubtful that Ocado’s grocer partnerships would pay off. Christopher Mandeville, a food retail and distribution analyst at research firm Jefferies, has criticized the Kroger deal in particular. Other than in a few major cities, he says, population density in the U.S. isn’t high enough to support Ocado’s CFC model. If anything, the pandemic has shown that “store pick” may be a more resilient business model: Stores can staff up to fulfill online orders if a crisis prompts a surge in demand, whereas automated CFCs, designed to operate close to capacity most of the time, aren’t as flexible.
Ocado正为其他最坏的情况做准备，主要问题是如果员工开始感染，或是全体团队要隔离该怎么办。（可能的解决办法包括从其他行业抽调休假员工去仓库，或开卡车送货。公司已经开始招收赋闲的Uber司机。）
看机器人忙碌工作简直让人着迷。伦敦东郊厄里斯一处仓库里，一千多台机器人在巨大的钢铝网上滚动。每台机器人看起来很像办公室的复印机，顶上有短粗天线，还有个闪亮的霓虹绿色LED屏幕。每台机器人沿着各自的路线疾驰，提速效率堪比法拉利。机器人会瞬间停下，倒退，向左或向右行进，或是暂停片刻让其他机器人通过，宛若精心编排的电动芭蕾舞。
Ocado’s roots stretch back to the dotcom boom, when three twentysomething Brits working as traders at Goldman Sachs—Tim Steiner, Jonathan Faiman, and Jason Gissing—got bitten by the startup bug. The trio founded Ocado in April 2000. (The name is an invented word, chosen because it could work across languages and because the founders liked how it looked as a logo.) Steiner, Ocado’s CEO, is the only founder still involved with the company. Compact and trim, with close-cropped gray hair and pale blue eyes, he exudes a pugilistic intensity as he walks through Ocado’s history at a rapid-fire clip.
与此同时，Ocado也不指望疫情相关收入增长能一直持续。大部分销售额增长来自购买干货和不易腐产品的顾客。该公司预测，下半年随着顾客不断清库存，相关商品的需求将低于正常水平。因此，公司并未上调全年销售和盈利预期。
One looming question is whether the coronavirus could thwart Ocado’s expansion. When the pandemic first struck, Ocado encountered trouble obtaining a key part for its robots, because it was made in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak. (The company has since found an alternate supplier.) Ocado mostly hires local engineering teams, so travel bans have had little impact on its plans. And grocery and construction workers have been classified as essential in most places, enabling work to continue. Duncan Tatton-Brown, Ocado’s CFO, told reporters in March that the company is sticking to its guidance on the completion of its international CFCs. Still, he acknowledged that if restrictions on movement stayed in place for many months, the construction timeline would suffer.
Ocado遇到的情况并非孤例。3月19日咨询公司麦肯锡向杂货店客户提供的报告称，全球在线杂货店都面临高达700%的需求高峰。疫情大流行很有可能对消费者行为产生持久影响，危机消退之后很长时间里，都会有更多消费者选择在线购物。各超市要尽可能高效满足新需求，人们对Ocado自动化仓库、机器人和软件的兴趣也会随之提升。
A strategic partnership helped get the new company going. Realizing it was too small to get the best prices from wholesalers, Ocado signed a deal with the upmarket U.K. supermarket chain Waitrose, allowing Ocado to piggyback on its deals with suppliers. In exchange, Ocado agreed to carry Waitrose’s white label products for ten years (a deal that was later extended for an additional decade). Waitrose’s parent company, the retailer John Lewis, invested $45 million for a 40% stake in the company.
公司还为硬件搭配了诸多新软件，从基于云的移动应用到人工智能均囊括在内。现在Ocado向全世界的杂货店提供集成软件包，以及维护和升级的工程支持服务。
Ocado currently operates six CFCs to support its U.K. grocery operation; it aims to run at least 50 worldwide within the decade. Its first CFC outside Britain, built for France’s Groupe Casino, went live on March 26. Another, for Sobeys, outside Toronto, should open by June. And its first center for Kroger is scheduled to come online in Monroe, Ohio, in the first half of 2021.
应用机器人后，Ocado最新的分拣中心每工时可拣选200件商品，意味着收到正常订单后，商品从供应卡车运到蜂巢，拣选、包装并装车等待配送，全过程不到15分钟。同时，由于蜂箱的模块化设计，可以很容易地复制和调整大小以适应新位置。
It all may sound like a stretch for a company whose core grocery business is still fighting to prove its staying power. But for those who wonder why Ocado would want to expand into parking or port operations, Steiner has a ready answer: What if Amazon had simply stopped with books?
机器人并不是克拉克唯一关心的事。在“垂直”农业领域也就是可持续农业的室内试验方面，Ocado进行了多项投资。公司收购了欧洲最大垂直农业公司Jones Foods的多数股权，投资成立了名叫Infinite Acres的合资企业，以及一家名为80 Acres Urban Agriculture的美国初创企业，还有荷兰Priva Holdings公司。另一项投资是英国初创企业Karakuri，该公司创建了自动厨房，可准备好餐厅级别饭菜然后送货。克拉克说，Ocado设想是构建“整合食品机器”。他解释说，通过垂直耕作、准备食品和同一设施内配送，“可实现从农场到餐桌两个小时或更短的时间内完成。”
苏格兰皇家银行资本市场的股票分析师谢里·马莱克表示，2022年之前Ocado都很难从许可经营业务获得正现金流。与此同时，巨额投资导致损失不断膨胀，2019年初，一家分拣中心又毁于灾难性的大火，导致损失进一步恶化。
Ocado, which had no stores, took a different approach. It built an automated central distribution center in Hatfield, on London’s northern edge, and delivered all its orders from there—a strategy that helped it minimize inventory shortfalls. The business quickly became popular, consistently topping consumer surveys. Its rate of substituted or erroneous items in orders—which it drove down below 0.5%—was much better than those of its rivals.