Duncan Tatton-Brown said he didn’t feel that Ocado needed to apologise for still being unable to bring on new customers, as this reflected “a societal desire” for more grocery home delivery generally, and an increase specifically for M&S products since the switchover. 

In early April, as the UK settled into life in lockdown and demand for grocery home delivery soared, Ocado effectively closed its website to new customers in order to focus its limited capacity on existing customers and a portion of people shielding at home. 

As a result, by the summer, Ocado said it had built up a waiting list of around 1 million new customers trying to get access to its service.