Power of frozen stabilises balance sheet for Deeside based Iceland foods

Deeside-based retail giant Iceland Foods report year-end figures today.

While there has been a slight decline in year on year sales of 2.7% – margins have increased in the 12 months to March 26.

Like-for-like performance reflected a reduction in total customer transactions, partly offset by an increase in average basket values the company said.

Nine new stores opened during the financial year which have added to the sales pot, online purchases are growing and over 200,000 deliveries are now made to homes each week.

Iceland are looking to the future and have begun construction of a state-of-the-art product development kitchen and test centre at the Deeside HQ.

The company has opened four new stores under The Food Warehouse brand since the beginning of the new financial year and aims to open 25 new stores in total by the next year.

Capital expenditure during the year totalled £63.5m (2015: £28.9m) with the increase reflecting substantial investments in a new EPOS system, the roll out of new LED lighting across all stores, and the modernisation of it’s Manchester manufacturing facility.

Iceland chairman & chief executive Malcolm Walker said:

“We have achieved good progress with a range of strategic initiatives designed to differentiate our business, and stabilise our financial performance, in what remains an extremely challenging UK market place.

“Our Power of Frozen marketing campaign is successfully re-emphasising our long-established credentials as the UK’s leading frozen food specialist.

“It is also helping to improve public perceptions of frozen food by underlining the real advantages only it can offer to consumers in quality, authenticity, freshness, choice, convenience and waste reduction as well as in providing consistently good value.

“This new marketing approach has been combined with our biggest-ever programme of product development and enhancement, bringing many new distinctive and exclusive frozen lines into our stores, including the Slimming World range which was launched in February 2015 and has already grown into the UK’s number one healthy eating brand.

“We have also benefited from a comprehensive upgrade and re-presentation of our fresh produce range, which has helped to build consumer confidence in the quality of our offer as a whole. The Iceland proposition has been further enhanced by improvements in our own brand packaging and in-store point of sale presentation.”

Iceland’s online service was awarded a rating of 77% for offering the best value for money as well as a high-quality own-brand products

The poll of 7,009 shoppers, carried out last November, showed Asda as having the worst online service, with customers scoring it 65%, Co-op was ranked worst for in-store satisfaction – for the third year in a row.

Top of the online shops (scored out of 100)

• Iceland – 77
• Waitrose – 74
• Ocado – 73
• Morrisons – 72
• Tesco – 68
• Sainsbury’s – 67
• Asda – 65