Ocado chief financial officer Duncan Tatton-Brown said today the website had been closed so the retailer’s technicians could make changes to the governing algorithm to improve the “fairness” by which people can book delivery slots.

While he wouldn’t be drawn on exactly what those changes would be, Tatton-Brown indicated Ocado was considering increasing limits on certain product lines, implementing means of stopping customers booking multiple delivery slots and even ways of prioritising the vulnerable and sick for delivery.

“The decision to close the website was not made because we couldn’t cope with the capacity,” said Tatton-Brown. “The website was closed so we could make changes to the code and technology that supports it to enable us to share our capacity in a more fair and accessible way to all of our customers.”