iceland

gailey_2

Think most supermarkets repeat same offer cycles so if retailers smaller can get boring. I find lidls good but boring.

Reason I always pick birdsye especially on vap lines is 100%chicken.
We have breaded chickem or fish with chips least once a week.
Like their steamfresh rice iceland as they 2 for £2.50 in farmfoods.

with 2small kids try and find stuff as natural and less junky as I can.

But thats just my preference.

Middy

Been to Iceland today and had boxes of Mini Weetabix with the choc chips for £1! I bought 3 boxes.

Kitty_Ears

I love Iceland & Farmfoods, most of our "basic" freezer stuff comes from there; chips, chicken pieces, fish and I occasionally buy milk and bread now. Our local farmfoods no longer sells quorn items which is a shame.

joeyboy

gailey wrote: »

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.

cut the rest to make it shorter.

Yeah I only started 5 years back, after what the CEO seems to call "the dark days", some sort of period where the company was facing huge issues and almost folded. We do still have the cooking sauces, though not the value they once were. Back when I started and for probably two years they had 50% extra free..and they just always were, but now they've lost that and are still £1 each. In fairness it's still not bad compared to the brands, but not as it was. I don't know if the same will happen with branded soft drinks and I'm amazed our prices haven't changed in so long and with Schweppes it's gotten cheaper, the bottles have always said 50% extra free and given you 3ltrs of coke, fanta, schweppes etc instead of 2. £1.25 for 3ltrs of Schweppes, £1.75 for ltrs of coke (though that changes from £1.59 to £1.79), the former beats even Tesco own brand lemonade, I guess it's because as you say Iceland does deals where only one brand will represent a certain product.

Right now I'm wishing we had a staff website, something akin to McDonalds where I know they have their rota's online. I wanted to try and contact the higher ups about what I see as quite a flawed Christmas 2012 despite being told via an Iceland newsletter about the new manager of depots and his fantastic new ideas. Well something went wrong because I've never known us to run out of so many Christmas lines before Christmas weekend. I run the frozen section when I work (part-time) and the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before Christmas I had a one and a third pallet delivery each day, that's abysmally low even for the non-Christmas period, so our "big pre-Christmas delivery" never happened. We had a cabinet full of Iceland £3 gateaus because out of the 5-6 posh £4-5 gateaus, we'd run out of all of them by the Saturday and didn't get any more, It was sort of embarrassing really.

joeyboy

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

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

If you liked it I'd check whether yours has any left over being reduced to clear, or possibly the goose roast at least. I know we had around 6 of the 3 bird roast left, though oddly enough I'm not sure they're on the reduced to clear listing, though they should be. I know goose roasts are along with large breaded gammon joints and such, we had a few of each left

joeyboy

Kitty_Ears wrote: »

Our local farmfoods no longer sells quorn items which is a shame.

tbh it's a very poor seller at my Iceland as well, they're always ditching products as space is at a premium for new lines, so if it doesn't make X amount a year, it's scrapped, I think we just have about 4 quorn lines in to cater to the veges though regardless. Does your Iceland have the own brand vegetarian mince in? Might want to give it a try at least as at £2 for a 1lb I think it's rather cheaper than Quorn, well excluding any special offers.

gailey_2

joeyboy wrote: »

cut the rest to make it shorter.

Yeah I only started 5 years back, after what the CEO seems to call "the dark days", some sort of period where the company was facing huge issues and almost folded. We do still have the cooking sauces, though not the value they once were. Back when I started and for probably two years they had 50% extra free..and they just always were, but now they've lost that and are still £1 each. In fairness it's still not bad compared to the brands, but not as it was. I don't know if the same will happen with branded soft drinks and I'm amazed our prices haven't changed in so long and with Schweppes it's gotten cheaper, the bottles have always said 50% extra free and given you 3ltrs of coke, fanta, schweppes etc instead of 2. £1.25 for 3ltrs of Schweppes, £1.75 for ltrs of coke (though that changes from £1.59 to £1.79), the former beats even Tesco own brand lemonade, I guess it's because as you say Iceland does deals where only one brand will represent a certain product.

Right now I'm wishing we had a staff website, something akin to McDonalds where I know they have their rota's online. I wanted to try and contact the higher ups about what I see as quite a flawed Christmas 2012 despite being told via an Iceland newsletter about the new manager of depots and his fantastic new ideas. Well something went wrong because I've never known us to run out of so many Christmas lines before Christmas weekend. I run the frozen section when I work (part-time) and the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before Christmas I had a one and a third pallet delivery each day, that's abysmally low even for the non-Christmas period, so our "big pre-Christmas delivery" never happened. We had a cabinet full of Iceland £3 gateaus because out of the 5-6 posh £4-5 gateaus, we'd run out of all of them by the Saturday and didn't get any more, It was sort of embarrassing really.

When I joined malcolm owned it then he sold to big food group which changed direction lots new stores /refits.
Then malcolm rebrought it and send of.video for all staff talking how bad big food group was .It was never that bad.

I worked in some pretty rough deprived stores on southwest. southwales and york.
I dont miss being in the cold room though they used to pump in silly amounts stock at xmas, keep reading they doing really well.
My bug bear was wages to cot of sale was never enough staff on to provide good customer service and good shop standards.
I disliked how they took store managers to disney yet never really gave good bonus to staff although do they still give vouchers at xmas to staff?


Xmas such a big time for them and spent money on adverts.
deliverie were always late .our depot was swindon and he crazy polish lorry drivers learnt few words mainly sorry im late and depot !!!!.

I would maybe ask area manager to pass it on.

Its not even like have excuse with frozen as its allocated grocery used to be on stockbuild on computer to order more in.
Not sure if use same systems but you used to be able to go onto something called sigh of inventory and check forcasts and min number per layout. so as my numpty area manger said if something 2facing and you have bogoff then need an mpl of 4, Sometimes inventory gets corrupt and have to correct it , you either phoned sbo helpdesk at head office or emailed them.

I suspect probaby down to problems with supplier maybe. The frozen desserts buyer got figures wrong.

You sound really loyal and keen to better the company they lucky to have you.

lushlifesaver

I must admit when I was a youngster my mum only used Iceland when we were having a tough time (dad got made redundant and she got cancer). Now having grown up (though still in my twenties) I have moved in with my bf in a small town where our store choices are Iceland, a small CO-OP and a Sainsburys express store and I have a new found love of Iceland, all our freezer staples come from there as well as some general groceries.

I have never had an issue with quality - it's all far superior from anything I've bought at the co-op! Just wish they did more lines.

The vouchers you get with a bonus card have been pretty awesome too!

Kitty_Ears

joeyboy wrote: »

tbh it's a very poor seller at my Iceland as well, they're always ditching products as space is at a premium for new lines, so if it doesn't make X amount a year, it's scrapped, I think we just have about 4 quorn lines in to cater to the veges though regardless. Does your Iceland have the own brand vegetarian mince in? Might want to give it a try at least as at £2 for a 1lb I think it's rather cheaper than Quorn, well excluding any special offers.

When we lived at Lincoln the Veggie range was quite substantial and much cheaper than supermarkets, but it has been cut down as well. Next time I visit Lincoln I'll have a look. :j

System

you can also spend any luncheon vouchers there, i save mine up all year and it pays for most of my christmas food shop.