“We sometimes joke that if we’d known how difficult it was going to be,
we might have chosen something else. No one has ever made online grocery
retailing from a warehouse work before. People thought we were mad...”
So says Jason Gissing who, eight years ago, at 29, gave up a lucrative job in
the City to help launch Ocado, the online company that, in partnership with
Waitrose, delivers groceries to your door. Today, the company is about to go
into profit for the first time. “I always knew it would take a long time,
but not this long, nor that it would be this complicated,” Gissing says. The
sheer size of the project – the initial investment was £277 million – and
its complexity (it delivers 12,000 orders a day) meant that it was never
going to make money from the word go. Now, after carefully building their
customer base of busy professionals and yummy mummies, Ocado has captured
half of the online market in London. Last year the company won The
Grocer magazine’s Gold Award for online retailer of 2007.
Gissing says that Ocado embodies the values that he holds most dear: healthy
living and a green conscience. “We want to be the greenest of green as a
business,” he says. “We were one of the first delivery businesses in the
country to run its fleet on biodiesel,” he says, “and because we are
centralised, we have a shorter supply chain than any supermarket, so we have
the lowest food waste of any food retailer in the world.”
His green approach, as well as his love of alternative therapies, and his
entrepreneurial spirit, may have been inspired by his family. His Japanese
mother introduced him to acupuncture, reflexology and Chinese herbal
medicine at a young age; his English father brought him up to seize business
opportunities whenever they presented themselves, and his Norwegian wife
Katinka, a former professional skier who comes from a dynasty of influential
environmentalists, encourages him to stick to his green principles.
“Katinka hassles me about doing the right thing for the environment; it was
her idea to print receipts on recycled paper, for example. It may sound
simple, but I’ve learnt from her family that individual action can make a
huge difference.”
Gissing, 37, also tries valiantly to minimise his carbon footprint at home in
West London, where he lives with Katinka, and a son and daughter, both under
3. He recycles religiously, regularly commutes to work by bus and uses his
bicycle to get around London.
Of course, the jury is still out on whether delivering food by van genuinely
is the greenest way to shop, but Gissing claims that by using one
purpose-built distribution warehouse (unlike its rivals, who use their
existing stores), it is only a matter of time before shopping with Ocado
will be greener than walking to the supermarket. The vast warehouse
minimises energy consumption because it doesn’t have a supermarket’s
conflicting demands of keeping customers warm and food chilled. Shoppers can
also choose the green option of having their food delivered when a van is in
their area rather than having a one-off trip made to their home.
When we meet at Ocado’s open-plan HQ in unglamorous Hatfield, Hertfordshire,
it is Gissing’s first day back after a bout of flu and his mother has
already been on the phone worrying about whether he will look presentable
for the Times photographer. She need not have worried. Gissing, who
invariably has “youthful” attached to his name, is tall and striking in
jeans and tweedy jumper. He thinks long and hard about his answers, yet he
is surprisingly frank about the company’s difficulties.
Being an entrepreneur is in his DNA
The idea came from two friends who were working with him at Goldman Sachs: Tim
Steiner and Jonathan Faiman. It was the Damascene moment that Gissing had
been waiting for. Coming from a family of successful entrepreneurs, the
desire to do his own thing was deep in his DNA. “My father always used to
say that there would come a point in my life where an opportunity would
arise and I’d think, ‘That’s it’. When that happened he told me to follow my
heart and do it.” So Gissing kissed goodbye to a promising banking career
and took a 90 per cent drop in salary.
From the start, rivals asked whether Ocado’s huge investment in a high-tech
automated warehouse – a dramatically new way of doing things – could ever
pay off. At times, the three co-founders must have had their doubts, too. It
was three years before the first delivery was made in 2002. Last November
the company reached a crucial financial turning point when it covered all
its running costs for the first time; it should soon move into profit.
It now seems spookily prescient that Gissing won the Grocer’s scholarship to
his boarding school, Oundle in Northamptonshire. His childhood was based in
Leicestershire but he spent several months a year in Asia, either staying
with aunts in Osaka or visiting the accessories factories his parents owned.
It was on childhood trips to Japan that Gissing was first introduced to
alternative medicine: he says that he’s had acupuncture for as long as he
can remember, usually in Japan and most recently for a sporting injury to
his back. He was also treated with a variety of Chinese herbs for childhood
hay fever and his mother has always given him massages. “She has also taught
me aspects of reflexology,” he says. “If I’ve got a headache or a blocked
nose there are certain parts of my feet I know how to massage. My wife often
jokes about how careful I am about what I eat and the type of remedies I’m
willing to try if I’m ill. But it’s second nature to me.”
Glamorous family connections
Gissing derives considerable support and inspiration from his parents, whom he
sees most weekends, and from his inlaws. His wife’s great uncle, Arne Naess,
founded the influential Deep Ecology movement in the 1970s. Her late father,
also called Arne Naess, was the mountaineer who led Sir Chris Bonington’s
successful expedition to Everest; he was also the singer Diana Ross’s
husband for 14 years. Gissing admits he is rather star-struck by this family
connection, although he’s nervous of discussing it.
He is still devastated by his father-in-law’s death in a climbing accident
four years ago. “He was a mentor and a friend who had a profound effect on
my view of the world. He gave me a sense of self-belief. Crucially, he
taught me not to be obsessed with the business, but to live each day as if
it’s your last.”
As a result, Gissing is careful to take time out with his wife and children,
who are already keen skiers. He also plays football – although he thinks he
might be getting a bit past it – and has been a keen tennis player since his
days in the Oxford University team. He has also practised yoga on and off
for years.
While Gissing had a happy childhood, he often felt like an outsider. “Between
the ages of 12 and 14, to not feel English in England, and then to be in
Japan and not feel Japanese, was quite difficult,” he says. “It could be
quite lonely. And if you don’t have siblings, people often look at you as if
you’re a bit of a freak. Although I think the advantage of being an only
child is that confidence comes more readily.”
Gissing clearly has spadefuls of confidence and ambition. He’s already
plotting Ocado’s next move, to take on the North by investing in another
vast distribution centre. So when asked if he regrets his dramatic
life-change, the answer comes as no surprise. “A lot of my contemporaries in
the City have made enough to give up work. But for me it’s not about the
money, it’s about feeling fulfilled. And even through the hard times I’ve
never been happier.”
To order through Ocado, visit www.ocado.co.uk
