Ocado's hi-tech model was the future of groceries once - has it now been left on the shelf?

That's quite a stock market journey: from 180p at listing 15 years ago to the mighty heights of £29 during the locked-down Covid year of 2020 and now - oh dear - all the way back down to 180p. Welcome to Ocado, which looked like the future of grocery retailing once upon a time, but now seems to be struggling to convince its most important customer of the virtues of robots and automation.

- Nils Pratley

There is no positive gloss to put on news that Kroger, the US supermarket chain, is closing three of its eight warehouses that use Ocado's technology. Kroger was the client that put a rocket under the UK group's share price in the first place in 2018 by signing a partnership deal. If Ocado could prove the worth of its kit in the world's largest consumer market, went the bulls' argument, valuation doubts would disappear.

In the event, the strain in the relationship has been showing for a while. But, when it came yesterday, the result of the US company's review of its ecommerce operations was worse than feared from Ocado's point of view. It wasn't just the three closures, but also Kroger's positive words about expanding its use of alternative delivery merchants - the likes of DoorDash, Instacart and Uber Eats.