5p carrier bags help boss of Deeside based Iceland deliver on £10m Dementia pledge

Millions of 5p carrier bags bought by shoppers at Iceland food stores have helped the Deeside based company’s Charitable Foundation raise £3 million which they donated this week to a Dementia research project.

The money will support the development of a Dementia Research Institute at University College London, the project got the green light in December.

This week’s donation is the first tranche of £10 million pledged to the project which has been inspired by Malcolm Walker CEO of Iceland Foods.

It’s a cause close to the Malcolm Walkers heart, his wife Rhianydd was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s six years ago.

His idea to use the carrier bag levy to help develop a world class Dementia Research Institute in the UK came up over a pub lunch with prominent dementia expert, Professor Nick Fox.

Mr Walker called upon the support of fellow retailers to help raise the funds needed to create a new UCL Dementia Research Institute – which will have everything it needs to fight one of the biggest medical challenges of the 21st century.

Asda, Morrisons and Waitrose threw their weight behind the campaign alongside Iceland from the outset, pledging to support the project with money raised from the 5p carrier bag charge, and through staff and customer fundraising.

UCL Dementia Retail Partnership has raised a staggering £10million in its first year for UCL Dementia Research – equivalent to the sale of around 200 million carrier bags.

Malcolm Walker, Founder and CEO of Iceland Foods, said:

This is a cause immensely close to my own heart and to those of very many of my 23,000 colleagues and five million customers – because there is hardly a family in the country that has not been affected by dementia.

It is now the biggest killer in the UK and costs the country more than cancer and heart disease, yet it receives a tiny fraction of the research funding dedicated to these other conditions.

At Iceland we have been fundraising for dementia research for several years, and I am delighted that we have been able to do so much to help raise the profile of dementia and improve understanding of the condition, as well as raising very substantial sums to help find a cure for this devastating disease.

We are the smallest of the UK’s national food retailers yet we have been able to pledge £10 million to the Dementia Research Institute project – a donation of nearly £12 for each and every one of the 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK today.

Professor Nick Fox of UCL said:

Dementia already devastates the lives of far too many families across Britain – we urgently need to find more effective ways to prevent, delay or treat the diseases that cause it.

There are real prospects for progress if we bring together the most able scientists and clinicians and support them in their research. This remarkable support from leading retailers could make a real difference to accelerating that research.

Iceland began actively fundraising for dementia research since 2010, the company began a three-year charity partnership with Alzheimer’s Research UK

They have also sponsored major fundraising initiatives including the Iceland Everest Expedition of 2011 and the Iceland Antarctic Expedition of 2012.

Its charity partnership with UCL Dementia Research was established in 2015.

Staff took part in fundraising during Iceland’s annual charity week last August, and organised two major events, a Charity Golf Day and a Dementia Challenge Ball.

Funds raised from all these initiatives are part of Iceland’s commitment to raising a total of £10 million for UCL Dementia Research.