Iceland Foods has opened its 200th Food Warehouse store, reaching a “major milestone” in its expansion plans.
The new store, located on the Blackpole Retail Park in Worcester, was unveiled by Josie Gibson, TV star and the face of the Iceland adverts, on 14 October.
Since its launch in 2014, the larger cash and carry-style format has become Iceland’s main source of growth. The supermarket aims to open around 20 new Foodwarehouse stores a year, as part of a long-term plan to more than double its Foodwarehouse estate, first revealed by The Grocer last year.
Typically at around 10,000 sq ft or more, Food Warehouse stores are double the size of traditional Iceland stores. The supermarket is understood to be on the hunt for up to 250 sites on retail parks and out of town locations around the UK and Scotland.
Located on the site of a converted CarpetRight store, the new Foodwarehouse Worcester will offer Iceland’s range of multi-buy offers, as well as an expanded range of its exclusive product partnerships.
To mark the opening of the store, Gibson participated in a ‘trolley dash’ to raise funds for the local food bank. Iceland supplier Britvic Tango also supported a £2,000 giveaway to the first 200 customers.
Iceland aiming to reach £5bn in sales
Iceland executive chairman Richard Walker discussed Iceland’s store rollout plans during a keynote speech at the FT LIve Future of Retail event in London last week.
“We’re opening shops where others are closing them,” Walker said, adding that Iceland had opened 25 new stores in total this year, with aims to open 30 overall the next financial year.
Each store would create around 30 jobs each, he added.
During its annual store manager conference in Salou earlier this month, Iceland unveiled an “ambitious and credible” plan to reach £5bn in sales over the next three years.
“We’ll do that through opening new stores and pushing online – which is going absolutely gangbusters for us,” Walker said.
Iceland would also look to grow through other channels, including its on-demand channels, concession partnerships with the likes of The Range, and by growing its manufacturing and hospitality business.
“We’re very confident about funnelling through our proposition and our strategy for the future,” Walker said.
However, he warned the barrage of additional employment and packaging costs as a result of the October 2024 budget had “been a bitter pill to swallow”.
Whilst he acknowledged that chancellor Rachel Reeves was “in a tight spot” in terms of the levers she could pull, there are “several” ways Walker would like to see her ease the pressure on retailers.
It included reform to “archaic planning restrictions” to reduce the time it takes to get approval to make changes to shops, as a well as a loosening of restrictions that make it difficult to open food stores on retail parks.
He also repeated an industry call for reform on current proposals on business rates, to create a “level playing field” between online and physical retailers, in a way that does not overburden brick and mortar stores.
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