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 700 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?

As well as accessing the supermarket scores, logging in or joining Which? will enable you to see how Iceland fared when we reviewed individual supermarkets' use of plastic and recyclable packaging.

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During the course of the investigation, our mystery shoppers took delivery of items that were already out of date by the time they were delivered, groceries that were within their use-by date but looked too manky to eat, and one item with a completely illegible use-by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

At the time of publishing this page (Feb 2021), unlike many other supermarkets Iceland is not refusing entry to people not wearing a face covering. A spokesperson said Iceland recognises that not all exemptions are visible and it trusts its customers to stick to the rules on face coverings.

Iceland has limits on the number of people that can be in its stores at any one time to ensure shoppers can socially distance.

Read our coronavirus supermarkets news story for the latest news on what coronavirus measures supermarkets are taking.

Iceland in the news

In January 2021, Iceland expanded its partnership with Uber Eats in London to allow customers to order from a selection of products and get their food delivered within 20 minutes. This has been introduced to ease pressure on Iceland's own online delivery service.

Iceland has said that it will eliminate all plastic from its own-label ranges by the end of 2023, and has reported that it had already achieved a 29% reduction at the end of 2019. 

However, to its dismay, in January 2021 a report by Greenpeace and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) put Iceland at the bottom of its league table of UK supermarkets for action on reducing plastic.

According to Kantar, Iceland saw a 21.8% increase in its sales from November 2020 to January 2021 compared to the previous year.

Iceland reached out to self-isolating students in halls and on student campuses in October 2020 by offering them £5 off a £40 online shop.

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 38% of Iceland packaging was correctly labelled. See how this compares to 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?