Iceland Foods is ending its more than a decade-long trademark dispute with the country of Iceland.
Executive chairman Richard Walker revealed the supermarket would drop the legal dispute, which centres on the right to use the phrase Iceland in the EU, following its third legal loss in July 2025.
Iceland had one fourth and final route of appeal, via the Court of Justice of the European Union, but Walker told the Financial Times it would instead use the “couple of hundred grand” it would save in legal fees to give a “rapprochement discount” to Icelandic shoppers.
The spat began in 2014 when the supermarket was finally granted a trademark of the word Iceland, and sought to prevent other companies from using the phrase in the EU.
The Icelandic government lodged a legal bid to strip the supermarket of the trademark after the retailer attempted to block Iceland’s trade promotion organisation – Íslandsstofa – from trademarking the term ’Inspired by Iceland’.
The supermarket subsequently entered an appeal, which was denied.
In July, the General Court of the European Union denied Iceland’s third appeal, lodged in October 2024, against the decision of the EU Intellectual Property Office’s (EUIPO) in December 2022 to uphold its previous ruling to strip the supermarket of its EU trademark protection for the word ‘Iceland’.
“We lost for a third time. We’re going to throw in the towel,” Walker told the FT. “It’s actually fine – we don’t have to change our name.”
The rulings have never impacted Iceland’s ability to sell into the EU. However, it stymies its efforts to prevent other people from opening shops called Iceland, or that sell Iceland’s products.
Iceland has been approached for comment.
Any rapprochement discount for Icelandic shoppers would most likely come in the form of shopping vouchers, the FT reported.
Iceland Foods recently accelerated its expansion in the country, as part of its joint venture SKEL, an investment group owned by Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson, who previously led Baugur’s acquisition of Iceland’s holding company the Big Food Group in 2005.
It launched the first of a new store within a store format with Icelandic retailer Netto in February. It supplies nine other Netto stores in the country. There is also an Iceland supermarket in Reykjavik.
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