UK online grocery specialists Ocado has announced a new partnership with French supermarket chain Groupe Casino.

According to Ocado, Groupe Casino is to use the UK company’s e-commerce technology to develop its own online business. Groupe Casino will start with its sub-brand Monoprix.fr. Ocado is also to build an automated warehouse to serve Groupe Casino’s operations in the Greater Paris area as well as Normandy and Hauts de France.

It has been known that Ocado has been seeking to expand its interests outside of the UK for a while as it never made strong profit growth here and its shares stagnated. The news made its share value jump yesterday when the news was announced.

Ocado’s chief executive Tim Steiner said: “We believe that the scalable, modular end-to-end solutions provided by the Ocado Smart Platform will allow retailers such as Groupe Casino to build their online grocery offer in a way that is profitable and sustainable, creating value for customers, suppliers and shareholders.

“We expect this deal to be one of many successful collaborations with leading retailers to use it the world over.”

Groupe Casino chief executive Jean-Charles Naouri added: “This agreement is a major leap in terms of quality: 50,000 food items will be offered in the first stage to customers in the Greater Paris area with precise and speedy delivery at home and through a platform which makes it achievable to do this profitably.”
 
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