Firm’s automated warehouses are struggling to compete against swift deliveries from stores by bike riders

• Ocado to cut 1,000 jobs in £150m cost-saving drive

Only six years ago, the boss of Ocado Group was writing the obituary for supermarkets as he predicted that a surge in online grocery shopping during the pandemic had brought forward the hi-tech future.

“Not every store will disappear, but there will be a dramatic shift,” Tim Steiner said at the height of the Covid pandemic, when shopping from the sofa became the only option for many.