iceland

gailey_2

geordie_joe wrote: »

And twisted it to fit what you want to prove.




I'm sorry but comparing BE fish and mcain chips to value spaghetti and whoopsie mince is completely pointless.

If you want to do a real comparison why not compare the same meal from different shops.

well geordie jo if I did compare same meal in other shops it be similar if not more as use branded goods mccain/b/e.

Normallly mr s.mr t and mr m have them on half price offers.
iceland farmfoods genrally have on multibuy so 2packs for £3.

My point was a lot of people who shop iceland are on low income I know this as worked in many of their shops on deprived estates would be collect giro on monday at po opposite them come over and get huge trolley and home delivery.

But buying mostly prepacked frozen is most expensive way to feed family or large quantity of people.

For some reason there,s always reduced mince somewhere usually co-op and lidls does have fab mince deals on weekends which i stock up on and chuck in freezer sometimes splitting 1pack and adding red lentils.

I think the spag bol meal be more filling, bigger portions come in cheaper and better value.

Im not anti frozen 1-2nights a week we eat frozen.
maybe im being snobby about brands but for me especially with the chicken itts the 100%chicken on b/e pack that sways me.
I sometimes buy some supermarket own brand fish fingers.
with things like chips and frozen veg im happy to go unbranded as they are what they are nothing added.

For me its saying ok I have set my grocery challenge at £200 a month.

This gives me £50 a week for

breckfasts -cereal or toast
packed lunches
7cooked dinners
household
toilitries
drinks and snacks.

if i had to buy frozen for every evening meal and most are small so would have to buy 2 possibly 3packs for family of 5 then my 50quid budget be quite tricky as spending nearly 5quid every evening meal is £35 before you start on any other things .

tessie_bear

im going to go and have another look at iceland as i have always found the shop to be dire...the fresh fruit and veg is pricey and limited choice...the fresh meat i have had is dire...on its last legs...the store seems ready mealy to me
all that said i do buy a bit of party food at christmas...cant think of anything else positive about it
each to their own though
tess

Edwardia

When I shopped at Iceland I bought the plain fish, meat, veg and poultry. The mince looked more like extruded cattle feed pellets than mince and disintegrated into fine grained brown slop basically. Mince aside I thought that the quality was pretty good for the low price, especially for the fish.

Sea bass.. although there's still some in the Med and English Channel, the majority of the stuff you see now is farmed. Iceland has 2 farmed frozen sea bass fillets with lemon and parsley butter for £3 (13.64/kg) and Waitrose has 2 farmed frozen Mediterranean sea bass fillets 220g 4.39 (£2/100g or £20/kg). Both frozen, both farmed, Iceland cheaper and with butter. Maybe the Iceland fillets will be smaller possibly and maybe there will be a few bones, but what's not to like at £5+ per kilo cheaper ? It's not going to taste hugely different.

MysteryMe

I don't mind Iceland at all. I think their TV advertising has done them no favours. In my local two there's a mix of people who shop there, it's not chav central. I bought some half price rump steak a couple of months ago and still chewing on it. Never again. They often have good deals on bread, I like the Tiger Loaf and Yorkshire Tea. Also tinned fruit etc. Always handy to have a few tins in the cupboard. As far as frozen is concerned I usually get pizza there and peas. I've had the chicken breast nuggets, they were fine.

narabanekeater

Im lucky and have both a Heron and Iceland within working distance. Iceland I find expensive for fruit and veg. Bread and milk tend to be the same cost in both but for good special offers Heron comes inot its own. I have 3 children 2 of which have a packed lunch. I dont allow them too many 'treats' as such but you can get fubes 3 boxes for £1, nice cheese and ham and a lot of premium brand cheaply at Heron. Now a lot of the time they only have about a weeks use by date on them but they dont last long in our house. Heron is the sort of shop you have to visit regular to get the bargains and be willing to buy then and there as often the bargains are snpped up quickly. The frozen veg is excellent value usually. Currently Aunt Bessies sprouts are 2 bags for £1 which knocks the socks off Icelands prices. Heron often do what they call Excell likes which are repackaged goods. Ive had chicken breast 500g/99p with a label on saying M&S. Also things like ice cream is very good value there. Now I do shop around, dont get me wrong but Heron allows me to feed my family well with what we do buy frozen and allow for some luxerys like Ice creams and keep to a budget.

Middy

I use Iceland for:
. Cheap cereals (had Oatso Simple for £1, Special K Clusters for £1.50)
. Milk (needs at least a week on the date as I live alone and 4 pints does me for the week)
. Bacon - very lean
. Yoghurts. Got 4 Rolo desserts for £1
. Warbie's crumpets - 9 for £1 (only get these if Sainsburys does not have the 2x6 for £1.20 offer)

joeyboy

As a heads up guys all Icelands should have a reduced to clear cabinet set up today as change over was last night. We had quite a lot to begin shifting, some big frozen Christmas joints, lots of trimmings like goose fat potatoes, sprouts with chestnuts etc. Obviously it'll vary considerably store to store but you might want to pop in for a few days to see what's in the cabinet at what time.

As for Iceland in general my viewpoint is....

When it comes to branded goods Iceland can have some very good special offers, for example recent Bisto gravy with 20% extra free so 600g, for £2. Also Yorkshire tea is often 100% extra free, though it's gone up to £2.50, not bad though. When there are no special offers you'll just have to compare with the bigger supermarkets, generally though I find if neither say Tesco and Iceland have an offer on a product, Iceland will usually be cheaper.

The issue is a lack of variety but obviously with a smaller store you'll always have that problem. In some areas I think it's poor decision making on whomever decides what brands we sell. For example we only do one brand of tomato pur!e, napolina. That's £1 a tube where as supermarkets will have their own brand which is just as good IMO for under half that price. I think a more expanded own brand groceries range would be helpful.

The only thing I'd personally tell people to be careful over is the fresh fruit and veg (not the chilled stuff, things like apples, oranges, cauliflowers etc). I find some of the stuff we get is a bit like Aldi/Lidl where you have to look at the product before you buy as bags can be hit and miss, things like a bag of pears being in-date but some of them looking a bit dodgy or some fruit being rather bruised.

As for people discussing brands and non-branded. I would suggest people try the own brand stuff, for example Iceland dippers, 56 for £3. If you get Tesco brand it'll cost you £2 for 20. Iceland's nuggets are 49% chicken, Tesco 54%, so Tesco have a little more but the price difference is staggering. Personally I've tried Birds eye and Iceland dippers, I don't I'd be able to tell which one I was being given. This is the same for a lot of products like fish fingers, chicken products, ready meals etc. In fact our southern fried chicken fillets (not the cheaper 8 for £2 ones but the 4 for £2) are much superior to Tesco's offering. Tesco is £2.50 for 4 and although it claims 100% fillet, they seemed rather minced and processed to me, where as ours are whole fillets. Also the frozen fish fillets are good value and better then equivalents I've had from other supermarket own brands.

Sorry for the Tesco only comparison it's just the main supermarket where I live.

gailey_2

Joey boy you spot on with your analysis.

When i started working for them heady days of 99 they used to have their own value range then they phased it out. They very expensive on things like tomato puree, tinned tomatoes, table pepper used to be £2.59.
They dont really have much own brand grocery apart from seafood sauce god that brings back memories of ariel shelf off 1metre seafood sauce over frozen prawns bog off. Also they do their own cooking sauces which uses to be multibuys 2 for £1.60. Thier dried pastas bit pricey and that was own brand.

They tend to do direct deals with manufactors.
one year they fell out with heinz so acrpped the weightwatchers cabinet and customers were in uproar think they replaced ith birds eye heakthy choices which were not too popular.

They did a deal with youngs I think to provide a premuim fish range but that went wrong what they wanted ie prepacked in a sauce so it was posh prawns, seabass and mussels. I rember was nearly 5quid a pack.
when it went to rtc got twin pack seabass for 50p.
When they discontined some posh wines had them at good price.
They did go when big food group into convieninace and more upmarket products and most stores had refit and extended fresh range fruit and veg always been hit and miss and took quite lot of shrinkage on fresh lines including flowers.

I still do rate their frozen fish even if less in a bag.
they do few good deals.


Maybe ill try nearest one if up that way just find farmfoods cheaper.
Thats why I asked about how heron compares as they its main rival but only cover parts of uk north and not south.

JimmyTheWig

DPJames wrote: »

:rotfl:Seriously?

I do know what they mean about the quality.
It's certainly not your high-end stuff, but it's decent enough, reliable quality for a decent price.

Like the OP, we had the Iceland 3 bird roast for Christmas and were very impressed.

miss_scrooge

busybee100 wrote: »

If anyone got high street vouchers for Christmas use them in Iceland, they give you change not a gift card.

I used gift vouchers in iceland last year only 3 pounds worth and my shopping came to 3 pound and she tried to give me 27 pound back in change lucky I was honest wish I wasn't sometimes, more change then I had in my purse ha ha.

I'm getting bored of iceland like most of the prices but they never have anything new on offer in the shop most of the food is nice.Getting bored of tesco aswell.