By Ross Hackney, Sales Director at Lowe Rental
Grocery ecommerce is now firmly embedded in the way people shop, and the numbers continue to climb.
In November 2025, 20.6 per cent of UK households placed an online grocery order. Online now represents billions of pounds in annual spend and underlines the channel’s growing weight within the market.
What began as a pandemic necessity has become a permanent feature of the UK grocery landscape, with digital baskets now embedded in weekly shopping habits across the country.
The demand is there. The operational ambition is there. But the infrastructure underpinning it is lagging behind.
Unfortunately, cold chain capacity is becoming the hidden bottleneck in grocery ecommerce growth. But this is not inevitable. With the right approach to refrigeration strategy, it can become an enabler rather than a barrier.
Demand isn’t the problem – it’s temperature
Chilled and frozen goods are complex. They demand tight temperature control, disciplined workflows and strict compliance. In a sector where margins are razor thin, getting it wrong can be expensive.
The fact is, traditional cold infrastructure was never designed for the volatility and speed of online grocery. It was built for steady, store-led replenishment. Large-format depots, long capex cycles, fixed layouts and depreciating assets do not lend themselves to rapid launches, regional pilots or demand spikes driven by promotions and seasonal changes.
The way grocery orders are fulfilled is still changing. Some retailers rely on large distribution centres, others pick from stores, and many are experimenting with hybrid or micro-fulfilment models. Investing millions in fixed cold infrastructure makes it harder to adapt. When the market demands pace, fixed ownership can hold you back.
This is where Refrigeration as a Service (RaaS) is reshaping how cold capacity is delivered.
Reimagining cold capacity
RaaS removes the need for heavy upfront capital investment. Refrigeration is delivered through a long-term rental model that combines design, equipment, technology and lifecycle management into a single managed service.
Instead of purchasing and managing refrigeration assets outright, retailers access capacity as a service – so they pay only for the capacity they need, when they need it.
Why does that matter for ecommerce?
First, speed. Standing up new chilled and frozen capacity traditionally involves specification, procurement, installation and commissioning timelines that can stretch for months, if not longer. Rental-led models allow operators to deploy vital infrastructure quickly, accelerating time-to-market for new online offers and services or regional expansion.
Second, flexibility. Online grocery volumes are inherently volatile. Weather, promotions, competitor activity and local demographics all influence demand. Fixed infrastructure locks capital in place, whether volumes justify it or not. But a service-based approach allows capacity to scale up or down as needed, not just reducing the risk of under-used space, but enabling retailers to seize opportunities as they emerge, respond to local demand spikes and move quickly when the market shifts.
Third, focus. When refrigeration is delivered as a managed service, the provider carries the operational and lifecycle risk – everything from system design and performance to compliance and uptime. That shift is hugely significant. It means retailers are not carrying the burden of maintenance failures, performance shortfalls or evolving regulatory requirements.
Instead, they can concentrate on what truly drives growth: improving picking efficiency, refining last-mile logistics and delivering a better customer experience.
The barrier to entry lowers too. Removing the need for major capital investment in refrigeration makes it easier for regional players, challengers and hybrid operators to compete and to move quickly when opportunities arise.
For regional players, challengers and hybrid operators combining stores with micro-fulfilment, the ability to access sophisticated cold infrastructure without heavy upfront investment creates a more level competitive field. It enables experimentation. It enables iteration. And it reduces the financial exposure associated with getting it wrong.
One area seeing particular interest is multiplexed open-plan cold storage, a modern approach that integrates storage, pick-and-pack and rapid fulfilment within a single controlled environment. Instead of fragmented cold rooms and rigid layouts, open-plan designs support more fluid workflows and higher-density operations, forming a critical link in the end-to-end cold chain.
Rental is becoming mainstream
Crucially, rental is no longer a short-term stopgap. Long-term rental strategies are becoming part of core estate planning. In a market facing ongoing inflationary pressure, evolving sustainability requirements and uncertain consumer demand, preserving capital while retaining agility is strategically attractive.
At Lowe Rental, we see this shift first-hand. Conversations with grocery retailers increasingly centre on resilience and speed rather than simple asset ownership. The question is less “What do we buy?” and more “How quickly can we adapt?”
The cold chain does not need to be a constraint on ecommerce growth. But unlocking it requires a different mindset, one that prioritises flexibility and recognises that operational flow can be more important than asset accumulation.
As the industry gathers at EuroShop later this week, the spotlight will rightly fall on digital innovation and consumer-facing technology. Yet the real enabler of profitable online grocery sits behind the scenes, in the temperature-controlled environments that make fresh fulfilment possible.
If we want ecommerce to scale sustainably, we must treat cold chain not as fixed infrastructure, but as an agile service layer capable of evolving alongside demand.
The bottleneck is real. But it is solvable and those who rethink refrigeration strategy today will be the ones best positioned to capture tomorrow’s growth.
Lowe Rental will be at EuroShop from 22-24th February – Hall 14 (Refrigeration & Energy Management), Stand 14B60. 
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