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Iceland Foods Limited, Trade name under both the Iceland and The Food Warehouse names, is a British supermarket chain headquartered in Deeside, Wales. Initially specialising in frozen goods, Iceland sells a range of grocery products, with frozen accounting for approximately one third of their volume. Specialising in own label and exclusive brands, Iceland sells these through both their Iceland-branded stores and the larger format Food Warehouse stores.
In 1983, the business grew by purchasing the 18 stores of Bristol-based St. Catherine's Freezer Centres, and in 1984 the business went public for the first time. The cash investment was used to purchase 12 stores of South East-based Orchard Frozen Foods (who had gone into administration), AJ & M Freezer Foods, Fulham Freezer Foods and Igloo. The business purchased larger rival Bejam in 1989 after a hostile takeover bid. In 1993, the firm took over the food halls of the Littlewoods department store and also acquired the French Au Gel chain. This last move proved unsuccessful and the stores were dropped within a year.
Around 2000, the company attempted ties with British Home Stores. In May 2000, Iceland Foods merged with Booker-McConnell, and Booker's Stuart Rose took the role of CEO of the merged company. He left for the Arcadia Group in November 2000 and was replaced by Bill Grimsey in January 2001.
Soon after Grimsey's appointment, Malcolm Walker, Iceland Foods's founder and chairman, was forced to stand down, as it was revealed that he had sold £13.5 million of Iceland Foods shares just five weeks before the company released the first of several profits warnings.
Iceland Foods' holding company was renamed the Big Food Group in February 2002, and attempted a refocus on the convenience sector with a bid for Londis. Grimsey remained until the takeover and demerger of the Big Food Group by a consortium led by the Icelandic company Baugur Group in February 2005. Walker subsequently returned to his previous role at Iceland Foods. Iceland Foods's website has a page critical of Grimsey's period in control.
After Baugur collapsed in 2009, a 77% stake in the firm came into the ownership of the Icelandic banks Landsbanki and Glitnir. In 2012 the stake was purchased by a consortium including Malcolm Walker and Graham Kirkham.
After Walker's return to the company, Iceland Foods reduced the workforce at the Deeside head office by 500, with approximately 300 jobs moved as a result of relocation of a distribution warehouse to Warrington., Greater Manchester]] In January 2009, Iceland Foods announced that it would buy 51 stores in the UK from the failed Woolworths chain, three days after the final 200 Woolworths stores closed their doors. In April 2009, Iceland Foods announced plans to close its appliance showrooms by September 2009 to concentrate on food retailing. Iceland Foods's sales for the year ended 27 March 2009 were £2.08 billion, a 16% increase on the previous year, with net profits of £113.7 million. An additional Iceland Foods store opened in Dudley town centre on 2 December 2010 in part of the former Beatties department store, 21 years after their initial departure from the town.
In 2013, two labs, one in Ireland and another in Germany, on behalf of the Irish state agency FSAI, identified 0.1% equine DNA in some Iceland Foods products. The Iceland chief executive, Malcolm Walker, was criticised by the FSAI for comments he made on a BBC Panorama programme in February 2013. He was asked why the products had passed British tests but failed the Irish ones. He replied, "Well, that's the Irish, isn't it?" He later apologised, stating he was deeply sorry if he caused offence.
In November 2013, the firm began selling appliances online again in partnership with DRL Limited. In May 2014, the firm reintroduced online shopping, which had been dropped in 2007.
In January 2018, Iceland Foods announced that it would end the use of plastic for all of its own-brand products by the end of 2023.
In 2019, Iceland Foods opened 45 new stores in the UK (including 31 larger stores under The Food Warehouse fascia) but had also closed eight, increasing the number of UK stores to 942. The company has a strategic alliance with The Range, where Iceland's food offer has been introduced to nine of the home and garden retailer's stores. In 2019 it also expanded its warehousing locations, adding five multi-temperature regional distribution centres at Livingston, Warrington, Deeside, Enfield and Swindon.
Iceland Foods was founded in 1970, but only acquired the Europe-wide trademark registration of "Iceland" in 2005. According to the Sagas Iceland, the nation was established in 874. It is an insult to common sense to maintain that the supermarket chain has a stronger claim to the trademark than the country.
In April 2019, The EUIPO invalidated the Iceland trademark.
In 2006, a policy of "round sum pricing" was introduced, with many products priced in multiples of 25p.
2006 also saw a surge in home delivery promotion, which is now one of the main focuses of the company. When a customer spends £25 or more whilst shopping in-store, they have the option of free next-day home delivery, choosing from available timeslots. Customers can also shop online and receive free next-day home delivery when they spend more than £40.
In October 2008, Iceland Foods launched the Bonus Card, a loyalty card and replacement for the original home delivery card. It allows customers to save money onto the card, with the firm putting £1 onto the card each time a customer saves £20, and gives occasional discounts, offers, and entry to competitions—including their main competition, in which each month one Bonus Card holder from every store wins the entire cost of their shop.
At first, The Food Warehouse was the brand for Iceland's larger-format stores but by 2025 they had become a separate chain within the Iceland Foods group.
In February 2023, Iceland's parent company sold its 27 Irish stores to The Project Point Technologies, although the company was expected to continue to use the Iceland brand name under a franchise agreement. In June 2023, Metron Stores, trading as Iceland, was ordered to recall all imported meat products by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, due to traceability concerns. In the same month, Metron said it was insolvent and unable to pay debts of €36m, and several stores were abruptly closed. Iceland returned to the Republic of Ireland in October 2024 under a partnership with retailer Dunnes Stores. There were 11 outlets in the Czech Republic, operated by ICL Czech until they closed in 2022.
Iceland Foods also operates stores in Spain and Portugal (countries with substantial British communities), in conjunction with Spanish-based retailer Overseas. The stores stock Iceland products as well as Waitrose items. In July 2012, in a joint venture with Jóhannes Jónsson, co-founder of Bónus and former Iceland owners Baugur Group, the firm opened a store in Kópavogur, Iceland, and subsequently in the capital, Reykjavík. Sandpiper CI has six Iceland Foods franchise supermarkets in Jersey and four in Guernsey.
Via franchise agreement with a local food importer and distributor, Iceland Foods operates in Malta. Initially, in 1998, this was for the supply only of Iceland Foods-branded products to supermarkets, but in 2015 the operation opened stores in Birkirkara, followed by Mosta, Qawra and Marsaskala in 2018. The Malta stores differ from those in the UK: there is a greater emphasis on non-frozen items, and stores feature fresh fruit, vegetables and bakery sections.
The current main tagline is the truncated "That's why mums go to Iceland". Storefronts also bear the tagline "food you can trust", and carrier bags in stores bear the tagline "the frozen food experts". From May 2015, the TV adverts used the tagline and hashtag of "Power Of Frozen" which were fronted and voiced over by Andre. In 2024, a new advertising campaign was launched featuring TV personality Josie Gibson, and the new tagline "That's why we go to Iceland", which is described as a modern update of their original tagline.
When the chain bought rival Bejam in 1989, they launched the TV-advertising campaign "Use Our Imagination," which included a song. The campaign was launched so quickly after the takeover that they had no time to convert all Bejam stores to the "Iceland" fascia. Therefore, the song for the commercial featured the line "We're at Bejam's too...".
In 2013, Iceland Foods stores appeared in a BBC documentary called . The firm was the main sponsor of the ITV reality TV show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! from its sixth series in 2006 until its fourteenth series in 2014.
In 2018, Iceland announced they would end the use of palm oil in all their own brand products due to concern over environmental impact of palm oil. Iceland to be first UK supermarket to cut palm oil from own-brand products The Guardian. 10 April 2018 It was the first major UK supermarket to ban palm oil.
In January 2020 and January 2021, Iceland Foods stores appeared in two Channel 5 series called Inside Iceland: Britain’s Budget Supermarket.
In 2016, Iceland stated that it would stop sourcing eggs from chickens confined in battery cages by 2025. In March 2025, The Humane League UK ranked Iceland last among UK supermarkets for adherence to cage-free egg commitments, citing that 71% of eggs sold by Iceland continued to come from caged hens. In May 2025, Iceland removed references to its cage-free commitment from its corporate website, a move that it attributed to cost concerns. In July 2025, following pressure by animal welfare organizations including The Humane League, Iceland recommitted to sourcing only cage-free eggs by 2027.
In 2025, Iceland faced a pressure campaign and protest over its sourcing of prawn whose eyestalks were crushed or removed and which were slaughtered without first being rendered unconscious by electrical stunning. In July 2025, it adopted a prawn welfare policy to eliminate the use of eyestalk ablation by 2026 and require stunning for Iceland-label prawns by the end of 2027.
Rang-tan advert
In November 2018, Iceland Foods submitted a version of an animated short starring a fictional orangutan named Rang-tan (originally released by Greenpeace) to Clearcast, but the submission was denied. Iceland Foods originally planned to utilise the short as the television advertisement that Christmas season, as an extension of their earlier palm oil reduction campaign.
Animal welfare
Iceland states that all of its own-label products meet internal animal welfare standards, which are based on the Five Freedoms developed by the Farm Animal Welfare Council. According to company statements, Iceland requires that animals and poultry be stunned before slaughter in accordance with EU Directive 119/1993, and mandates the use of CCTV in slaughter and shackling areas. These systems must be regularly reviewed by trained personnel, with any breaches reported to the company’s technical manager. Iceland also prohibits the prophylactic use of antibiotics in its supply chain and supports the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s Dairy Calf Strategy.
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