Iceland review

Iceland is best known for its frozen food, but it also stocks non-frozen store cupboard essentials and a small selection of fresh food. So should you do your main supermarket shopping there?

In the annual Which? supermarkets survey, more than 300 Iceland shoppers rated the retailer on everything from queuing time to the quality of its food and value for money. 

This enabled us to work out star ratings for different categories, as well as an overall customer score.

Are Iceland supermarkets any good?

This is member-only content.

• Join Which? to find out what Iceland customers had to say and which supermarket was rated as the best. You'll also get instant access to all our online reviews.
• Which? members can log in to unlock the tables below and see how Iceland scored.

Is Iceland's online delivery service any good?

This is member-only content.

• Join Which? to find out what Iceland customers had to say and which supermarket was rated as the best. You'll also get instant access to all our online reviews.
• Which? members can log in to unlock the tables below and see how Iceland scored.

How fresh is the food in Iceland's deliveries?

We went undercover to find out how the different supermarkets compare for freshness, using a team of mystery shoppers to order hundreds of groceries in the first – and biggest – comparison of its kind in August 2021. 

During the course of the investigation, our mystery shoppers took delivery of items from various supermarkets that were already out of date by the time they were delivered, groceries that were within their use-by date but looked too manky to eat and one item with a completely illegible use-by date.

Log in or join Which? to discover which supermarkets will deliver the freshest produce – and which ones could leave you with past-it produce that's dangerous to eat. 

How safe are Iceland stores in the pandemic?

When we surveyed Iceland shoppers in October 2020, 66% rated its in-store Covid-19 measures as good or excellent. Find out how this compares to the other supermarkets in our survey by visiting our guide to the UK's best and worst supermarkets.

At the time of publishing this page (February 2022), Perspex screens, sanitising stations and enhanced cleaning remained in place in stores, and Iceland was encouraging customers to keep a safe distance from each other while shopping.

Iceland in the news

In January 2022, Iceland said it would freeze the prices of 60 items in its value range at £1 until the end of the year to ease the pressure on households due to the rising cost of living. 

Iceland has said that it will eliminate all plastic from its own-label ranges by the end of 2023. However, in November 2021 its managing director admitted that it could miss this target, partly blaming issues caused by the pandemic. It reported that it's achieved a 29% reduction since 2017. 

In October 2021, Iceland opened its 150th branch of The Food Warehouse. These are much bigger than regular Iceland stores and have a larger range and bigger pack sizes. It aims to have 200 branches of The Food Warehouse by 2024. 

Also in October 2021, Iceland announced that it would give food on the last day of its shelf life away for free to online customers in an effort to reduce waste. Shoppers don't have to do anything extra – if an item ordered is the only one left and has the same use-by date as the day on which it will be delivered, they will simply receive it for free.

• Find out more: how to spend less at the supermarket 

Which? research on Iceland's plastic packaging

In April 2019, we investigated how much supermarket plastic packaging is recyclable. We ordered 46 of the most popular own-brand items from 11 major UK supermarket chains and found that 52% of Iceland's packaging, by weight, was widely recyclable at the kerbside.

We also looked at whether the packaging was correctly labelled with recycling advice. We found that 38% of Iceland packaging was correctly labelled. See how this compares with other supermarkets and find out more about supermarket plastic packaging.

Find out more

• Best and worst supermarkets: see how the big players compare
• Supermarket price comparison: which is the UK's cheapest grocer?
• Supermarket plastic packaging: which stores are doing the most to help the planet?