Grocery Automation Is Back on Retailers’ Radar with Ocado CEO Tim Steiner | WRC 2026

In this Omni Talk Retail interview, recorded live from World Retail Congress 2026 in Berlin, Chris Walton connects with Tim Steiner, CEO of Ocado, to discuss the rapidly evolving future of grocery ecommerce, fulfillment, and retail automation. Drawing from Ocado’s work with retailers across global markets, Tim explains why grocery ecommerce continues to operate so differently market by market, from the UK’s delivery-led ecosystem to France’s pickup dominance and the increasingly hybrid US landscape. The conversation explores how local consumer behavior, labor economics, and store infrastructure continue to shape fulfillment strategies worldwide. Tim also shares why automation and micro-fulfillment are beginning to regain momentum after several uneven years across the industry. He explains why many early automation deployments struggled to produce strong returns, why growing ecommerce volumes are creating new urgency around fulfillment capacity, and how Ocado believes robotics can help retailers improve both operational efficiency and customer experience over time. The interview also dives into: • Why the US grocery ecommerce market has evolved so rapidly • The operational differences between delivery and pickup models • Why many first-generation micro-fulfillment solutions failed • How automation economics improve as online grocery scales • The growing capacity challenges facing US grocers • Why sub-one-hour fulfillment changes the economics of picking • How robotics can improve both efficiency and speed • Why retailers may eventually need automation to stay competitive • The complexity behind building scalable grocery automation systems • How Ocado approaches fulfillment differently from traditional automation providers Thank you to Vusion for supporting Omni Talk Retail’s live coverage from Berlin. #WorldRetailCongress #WRC2026 #OmniTalkRetail #Ocado #GroceryRetail #Ecommerce #MicroFulfillment #RetailAutomation #SupplyChain #FutureOfRetail