Feasts of Frozen Fun (Iceland)

Member Name: Vialdana

Product:	Iceland
Date:	04/07/09 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good quality cheap frozen foods

Disadvantages: higher priced for non frozen items

Iceland is one of those shops which I think people either love or hate. Originally just a frozen foods shop it now sells a fair bit more than that - in fact you can even buy the freezer there in some stores! I couldn't tell you how long I've been shopping there, but it's been quite a lot of years, and over that time I've found some good things and some bad things about the place.

The first good thing is their pricing system. They don't sell things for 99p or £1.99 it's all nice round numbers 50p, £1, £1.50, £2 etc. Now call me a moaning madam if you like, but I've always hated the way shops price things just under the round number - it's as if they think we're stupid and can't work out that spending £5.99 is only a single penny off £6 and not closer to £5. So with Iceland pricing things in a nice simple round way I do like it. It makes me feel like they don't think of me as an idiot.

The second good thing about them is that the prices they sell things for are actually pretty reasonable most of the time, and the quality of the food you get is good as well. They do brand name products - and we all know what those are like, so I'm not talking about those, I'm talking about their own brand items of which there's a good range too. They don't break it down into value regular and extra special like some stores do either, they just have one simple range of products. They used to have two ranges the second being their healthier range, but they've stopped doing this now (at least in the stores I visit locally), and that's fine by me, if you want special products that are aimed a dieting then there's already loads of places that do them and they do stock a few branded items of this nature anyway.

In our house, we tend to go to Iceland once every month or two. We don't buy from there every week, and we don't generally get much that's not frozen (a couple of packets of baguettes and a pack of cheese slices normally). Mostly because although their prices are as I've said very good for frozen stuff, they're not so wonderful for fresh or tinned/packeted items. Our favourite products that they do are their burgers - hubby likes their Beef Quarter pounders which are £1 for 4 burgers, and I like their 100% beef Quarter pounders which are a bit more, but don't have as much in the way of fillers added. We both like their sweet and sour chicken balls - which I should mention even though they're not listed as 'low fat' are actually incredibly low for this sort of thing coming in at 12.9g of fat for a 255g pack with sauce. You get about 8 chicken balls in the pack.

Obviously we don't go in just for these three things, but I thought I'd mention these as they are our favourite items. (They also do a rather nice toffee icecream, which isn't low fat at all but tastes fab!). They do also do some excellent low priced deals where you can get a variety of foods for a set price - normally a bit lower than if you bought them separately - it's normally things that go together too like stuff for a Sunday roast, or for a bbq.

The store is laid out in isles and really the only thing that's a bit irritating about it is that they do have a habit of putting metal baskets at points along the isle so they're nicely in your way as you shop. Generally these baskets have items in that they're trying to promote I believe so I can see why they do it even if it is a bit irritating.

As I mentioned at the beginning, some of their stores also sell things like Freezers and fridges, I'm not really sure how this came about, but it does seem a bit of an odd combination in some ways to have a small section of appliances sat there at the back of the store for people to buy. I can't really comment much on what they have as I've never looked too closely I'm afraid.

One thing I do hate about Iceland is that in some of their stores, they don't make you put a £1 coin in the trolley which I don't actually object to doing, instead, they stick these wretched great big poles on the darn things so that they won't physically fit thorough the doorway. Now I'm disabled, carrying bags is rather awkward when you're leaning on a stick, so every time I shop there, if I've not got someone with me to help me, I have to get someone from the store to assist in carrying the bags out to the car. I'm not the only one who has to do this by a long shot, I often see parents with small kids struggling and having to get assistance too, and it does seem rather a silly idea for them to have come up with, and it makes me wonder how many of their stores have this silly trolley style.

Summary: A Freezer shop that sells a wide range of frozen foods of reasonably good quality at decent prices.