A spokeswoman for the online retailer said staff are “working round the clock” to fulfil deliveries, but admitted that “no matter how hard we work” the Ocado system simply does not have the capacity to fulfil the level of orders it has received.

Ocado has recently paused its virtual queue system to allow it to give priority access to vulnerable customers and its Smart Pass Anytime holders but has still faced criticism from customers for lengthy wait times and unfulfilled orders.

The spokeswoman said that, while Ocado is currently the fastest-growing grocer in the UK and is constantly adding capacity to keep up with demand, the levels of requests have been completely unprecedented.