Iceland managing director Richard Walker has said that food price rises “will get worse” as food inflation soared to a record breaking 11.6% in October.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today show, Walker said that this comes as a result of “lots of external pressures from the war in Ukraine to commodity price inflation to labour shortages to fertiliser shortages and everything else in between.”
He said that the frozen food retailer is absorbing the price rises of some essential products, adding “we don’t make money on milk”.
When questioned on if its current 89p priced milk will soon rise to £1, he said that he “doesn’t know” but is “working day and night” to keep prices lower adding that “food insecurity is inevitably on the rise and it’s the households with kids who are most at risk.”
In looking to tackle this, Iceland has launched offers throughout the cost-of-living crisis, including its 1p ready meal deal where shoppers are able to put up to three of the ready meals in their online basket when doing their weekly shop.
Yesterday (2 November), Iceland also declared its support for the Feed the Future campaign which is calling on the government to increase eligibility of free school meals to all families in receipt of Universal Credit or equivalent benefits.
Coordinated by The Food Foundation, the campaign aims to see an additional 1.4 million children provided with free school meals.
During his BBC interview, Walker added “coming into winter we’ve got heating, we’ve got fuel, we’ve got food inflation.”
To help its shoppers use more energy-efficient cooking appliances and save up to £426 each year, Iceland launched ‘The Big Cooker Switch Off Challenge’, challenging shoppers to turn off their ovens for a week and use air fryers, microwaves and slow cookers instead.
