Ocado has launched an app for Amazon’s Alexa voice service system today, allowing consumers to add to and track existing orders.

It is downloadable from customers’ Amazon accounts. From there, they can update or track orders and find out what foods are in season and get recipe ideas.

While the app is able to suggest items based on previous orders, customers are not able to create new orders.

Hands-free grocery shopping

Ocado’s marketing and commercial director Lawrence Hene said: “Grocery shopping should be quick, easy and convenient. Using voice technology, we’ve made it even easier by developing our new app that will enable our customers to add to their Ocado baskets without lifting a finger.

“Consumer demand for increasingly convenient ways to shop is growing rapidly and we’re excited to be the first supermarket in the UK to offer this technology, making customers’ lives ever easier.”

The online supermarket has had a turbulent time of late.

While profits and sales have generally followed an upwards trajectory, it is operating in an increasingly competitive grocery sector with Tesco’s fightback under way, Morrisons selling via Amazon and Amazon stamping its mark on Whole Foods by lowering prices.

Ocado revealed that it had struck its long awaited international deal in June but has yet to reveal the identity of its partner.