Iceland Foods has dropped its ‘Keelings, Love to Grow’ own label and moved all of its fresh fruit and veg lines back under the Iceland brand, The Grocer can reveal.
The supermarket first launched the UK-exclusive range in November 2023 into all Iceland and Food Warehouse stores, as part of a new supply agreement with Irish supplier Keelings. The branded range initially consisted of around 60 fresh fruit, veg and preprepared lines, which replaced the vast majority of Iceland branded own-label equivalents in Iceland and Food Warehouse stores.
Keelings’ branded lines – which included salad vegetables, berries, melons, easy peelers and grapes – began disappearing from stores at the start of the year, with Iceland branded products replacing them. ‘Keelings’ still has a dedicated landing page on Iceland’s website, however no Keelings branded products are available.
Iceland confirmed to The Grocer it had dropped the brand, however added that Keelings remained an Iceland supplier.
“We’ve been rolling out our new Iceland own-label packaging for our fresh produce range since the start of the year,” an Iceland spokesman told The Grocer.
“It’s been a great hit with customers, and we’ve seen a significant rise in sales. This is because our customers trust the quality and value of the Iceland brand, and Keelings remain an important supplier for us.”
When ‘Keelings, Love to Grow’ launched into Iceland, the supermarket claimed it was the grower’s “biggest fresh branded range” to date. It came as part of a major overhaul of its fruit and veg lines.
At the time group buying director Andrew Staniland said the new range, and wider category reset, was aimed at improving Iceland’s quality perception in categories outside of its core frozen offer. Staniland has since left Iceland, and joined Morrisons as group trading director in February.
Keelings specialises in berries and fruit, and also supplies Tesco, Dunnes and Spar stores among others in Ireland. The Grocer has contacted Keelings for comment.
It’s the latest packaging switch by Iceland, which last month scrapped vacuum packaging on mince lines in favour of traditional plastic trays.
The u-turn came six months after Iceland switched to the lower-plastic vacuum packaging, which it claimed at the time would save approximately 35 tonnes of plastic per year.
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