Ocado shares fall after new robot warehouse fire

Ocado's robots have caused another fire.

The blaze at the group's biggest automated warehouse halted fulfilment of customer orders from the site in southeast London.

It also sent shares in the firm tumbling by around 4% in Monday morning trade.

Over the weekend Ocado said the fire was seemingly caused by three robots colliding.

It says the damage was very limited.

But it's the second time the robots have caused a fire.

In 2019 a huge blaze completely destroyed one distribution centre.

That incident was blamed on a robot battery catching fire.

Ocado said there was no subsequent impact on its business model supplying automated technology to other supermarkets.

It signed several deals after the 2019 incident.

But now a second robot fire may alarm existing and potential customers.