YouTube collective Sidemen have launched a new exclusive range into Iceland Foods.
The new range – called Sides – consists of an initial 15 products including sauces, chicken wings, BBQ ribs and a selection of side dishes including onion rings and cheese bites, inspired by dishes currently on sale at the Sides chain of restaurants.
The products – which will retail between £2 and £10 – will roll into Iceland and Food Warehouse stores nationwide from 18 June.
“We always like to go big, and you could argue that there is currently no bigger brand than this,” Oliver Gilding, Iceland Foods head of innovation & licensing, told The Grocer.
While all the products were based on “bestsellers” from Sides restaurants, over the past year Iceland had worked with its existing supply to chain to ensure that the quality could be replicated in a frozen product.
It’s the latest in what is a growing presence in UK food and drink for the YouTube megastars. The group partnered with Mornflake to launch Best Cereal brand into Tesco, in March 2024. That was followed by a range of snacking meat products with New World Foods later the same month. Iceland is now also stocking both products.
The group – known by the monikers W2, Miniminter, Zerkaa, TBJZL, Behzinga, Vikkstar123, and Prime Hydration co-founder KSI – has more than 150 million subscribers to its channel. Each member also has their own mass followings.
Over the past decade, Iceland has built a growing portfolio of exclsuive brand partnerships, as part of an ongoing programme to broaden the frozen grocer’s offer.
Iceland recently began stocking lines of Prime Hydration, as well as Syps, a fizzy water brand founded by the rapper Aitch. However, Gilding said it was the first time Iceland had launched a full influencer-led range which was overtly targeted at younger people.
“We’d been really careful not to launch into that previously, but actually parents love shopping a lot of the restaurant-ready ranges with us and their kids absolutely love the Sidemen, so it makes perfect sense for both parties.”
Normally when deciding partners for its restaurant-ready ranges, Iceland would target chains that had a large number of restaurants, like TGI Fridays for example, Gilding said.
While Sidemen currently only had seven outlets in the UK, the partnership “made sense for both parties” while the brand was expanding, as Iceland had a supermarket in pretty much every UK town and city, he added.
In order to work as “collaboratively” as possible with the group’s expanding chain of restaurants, Iceland is offering ‘bounce back vouchers’ on the products, equivalent to 10% off in one of Sidemen’s restaurants.
Diners will also be offered a free product to collect at Iceland.
The range will rotate seasonally. Iceland has already developed a pipeline of new products that will launch over the coming months, including ice cream and desserts, Gilding said.
“It’s more about how we evolve the current range, it’s about how we can continually innovate, similar to what we do with all of our ranges.”
To celebrate the launch, Iceland had converted its Iceland store in Hackney, London into a ‘SidesLand’ until the end of June. It has seen additional Sides fridges added, and features the branding heavily across PoS and ceiling banners.
The full Sides range is listed in full below:
- Sides Chilli Cheese Nuggets 240g – £3.50
- Sides Cheese Nuggets 240g – £3
- Sides BBQ Cheese Bites 280g – £3.50
- Sides Nashville Spiced Ridge Cut Dipper Chips 600g – £3.50
- Sides Mini Hash Brown Onion Rings 420g – £3.50
- Sides Jalapeno and Cheese Hash Brown Nuggets 400g – £3.50
- Sides Nashville Coated XL Fried Chicken Ribs 490g – £5
- Sides Mega Feast Box 1kg – £10
- Sides Salt N Pepper Chinese BBQ Wings with Crispy Fried Onions 425g – £4
- Sides Smoke ‘N’ Spice Sweet Chilli Wings with Crispy Fried Onions 425g – £4
- Sides Sweet ‘N’ Salty Chicken Bites 400g – £4
- Sides Crispy Coated Boneless Chicken Box 550g – £5
- Sides Chicken Shop Sauce 350ml – £2
- Sides Sweet ‘n’ Smokey Ketchup 350ml – £2
- Sides Ultimate BBQ Sauce 350ml – £2
If you’ve got a fantastic new product or packaging innovation, we want to hear about it! The deadline for The Grocer New Product & Packaging Awards is 24 June, so get your entries in. Visit thegrocernewproductawards.co.uk to enter, buy tickets or to enquire about sponsorship opportunities.
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