Ocado customers were left fuming after Christmas essentials didn’t arrive (Image: Getty)
Hundreds of Ocado customers were left without essential Christmas food items -including turkey and booze – after a malfunction at one of the online supermarket’s warehouses.
Several customers reported missing chilled and frozen products from their orders, while others were missing dozens of items, .
One disgruntled customer took to X (formerly Twitter) and wrote: “Well thanks very much @Ocado – due to deliver our Christmas order between 8 & 9 this evening and didn’t show up. That’s Christmas ruined for 16! ! And a £50 voucher doesn’t come close to compensating! You’ve lost 20 year customers.”
Another customer expressed frustration, stating that for the second year in a row, Ocado had substituted gluten-free items with unsuitable alternatives, putting their partner’s dietary needs at risk. It is understood that the issues arose at Ocado’s Erith warehouse, which processes approximately 200,000 orders weekly.
One added: “One of Ocado’s delivery centres malfunctioned over the weekend leaving some customers with no chilled produce or meat or dairy or basically any of their Xmas dinner. One driver blamed a malfunctioning robot.”
Customer Jane added: ” Blooming heck – seven items missing in my Xmas Eve delivery including the booze is not very festive.”
Andy said: ” Well you’ve properly let yourself down. Over 30 items, all of our chilled Xmas food is not arriving… How can you trust online delivery if you can’t even make Christmas?!”
Stuart said: ” Ocado. What’s the point in me ordering weeks in advance , waiting up to book a Christmas delivery slot, only for tons of stuff to be substituted or even just missing. For the second year running, there won’t be a third!”
An Ocado spokesperson acknowledged the issue, stating: “We are aware that a small proportion of orders were not delivered as expected.”
“This does not meet our usual high standards and we understand the inconvenience this will have caused, especially at this time of year. We are proactively reaching out to apologise to those affected.”
Supermarket Morrisons was also hit with problems this week. The chain cut the price of items including turkeys and Champagne for all shoppers after a system glitch hit its loyalty card on Monday, but some customers may face delayed Christmas orders.
The supermarket chain is offering 10% off an entire shop on Monday and Christmas Eve for its loyalty card holders, and discounted prices for all shoppers.
Morrisons apologised to customers after confirming it was dealing with “system issues” which had affected its More Card loyalty scheme, and some click and collect orders.
The problems led to complaints from customers who found discounts were not being applied at the till, leaving them with a more expensive shop than they had expected during the morning.