Ocado boss Tim Steiner has said the pureplay grocer has been largely immune to the inflationary price rises gripping the industry and downplayed risks to sales.

Ocado van

Steiner insisted that Ocado’s ranges could cater to all consumer budgets

Speaking after the retailer and technology platform unveiled widening losses, Steiner said Ocado had not seen anything like the 3% to 5% food inflation numbers being quoted by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Tesco chair John Allan. 

“We tend to kind of follow the market on pricing,” said Steiner. “So far, we’ve not seen prices rising anything near as much as I’ve been reading about in the newspapers. But we’ll wait and see what happens in the market.”

While Steiner did not rule out some price rises in the future, he said that Ocado’s extensive ranges could cater to all consumer budgets. As a result, he does not expect a material downturn in sales as a result of rising inflation. 

“We’re not expecting to see a reduction in demand based on inflation”

Tim Steiner, Ocado 

“People eat one meal out less a week and actually end up spending more money in a supermarket as they eat an extra meal at home, because it’s much cheaper to cook your own food than it is to eat out or order it from Deliveroo,” he said.

“We’re not expecting to see a reduction in demand based on inflation or cost-of-living challenges that we’re very well aware that people are facing.”

When asked what Ocado was doing with its suppliers to manage increased costs, Steiner said that “fairly powerful suppliers are always looking to push through price increases” but reiterated “we are seeing a lot less of that translating into average basket prices”.

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