Iceland Foods is to invest £100k in a scheme aimed at supporting brands to develop exclusive products for the supermarket.

Dubbed Brands on Ice, the frozen food retailer has called on both challenger and established brands to pitch new innovation ideas to its team as part of its brand acceleration programme.

Successful brands will then receive an investment, capped at £100,000, to support the launch of the product and activation within its stores, online and internationally.

Among other features, Iceland’s product launch investment rate care includes online product web design and package point, in-store shelf edge, point of sale and store level design as well as help with social media plans, activations, and customer performance data.

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Alongside its new scheme, Iceland has provided prospective applicants a guideline of how to produce a ‘perfect pitch’ for its programme.

The new initiative will run quarterly, allowing successful nominations to showcase their products to a team of Iceland buyers and executives four times a year.

The new programme comes amid Iceland’s expansion beyond its traditional frozen categories in a bid to broaden the appeal to shoppers and change consumer perception of the grocer from a frozen specialist to a full-range supermarket.

In April it launched a 30-product household own-label range, which built on the 500 own-label products and branded items it had rolled out in August last year.