Meanwhile, in the States, nobody cares if you call your company “American Foods” or “US Foods” or whatever. It just promotes the country, which I thought Iceland would be interested in.
Somebody in the UK eats something from Iceland Foods, goes “oh, neat, this is from Iceland”, and then there’s another angle for tourism.
In 2016, we wrote about Iceland Foods, a UK grocer, which had somehow convinced the EU to give it a trademark for “Iceland” and which then went about bullying other companies and opposing trademarks for any that included the name of that country.
Whelp, that’s totally different than what I expected. I thought it was the other way around.
I moved from the U.S to Wales for a year for a study program.
I used Icelandair to fly there. And stopped over in Iceland for 4 days. Because why not.
It’s a beautiful country btw.
While there I ate some of the local foods. I liked their skyr yogurt and these hotdog bun things they sold all over.I Wasn’t interested in their main foods like fermented fish.
But anyway. I get to Wales. I find a store called Iceland.
I think. Oh I bet they sell Icelandic food. Like the yogurt and hotdog buns.
I go in. It’s just frozen coolers.
All they sell is frozen food.
Now something important about Wales (and I’ve heard this applies to other European countries) is that the big fridges and freezers common in the U.S are not common there.
At my apartment I only had a mini fridge. And I asked around and that’s common. It’s very uncommon for apartments to have full size refrigerators.
This was a pain cause I had to go grocery shopping 2x a week. And the freezer was so small that the only thing that fit was an ice cube tray and a tub of ice cream (priorities).
So I couldn’t buy frozen food. But most stores didn’t sell much of it anyway. (Like the Tesco).
But this Iceland store did.
But I wondered, who has freezer space to buy any of this since most people don’t have big freezers. ?
Anyway. My point.
Misleading store name. No Iceland food. No yogurt. No hotdog bun things.
They could have at least put a hyphen in the name.
And 2. Not sure how lucrative it is to sell frozen food in many European locations when people don’t have freezers.
I would recommend you don’t go to Waterstones, Currys, Boots or Weird Fish.
Instead, I recommend going to Staples. You’ll have a much better time there.
Sorry for your experience but I assure you we do have freezers. Freezers are in fact very common, just not in small apartments where space is at a premium.
Vast, American-style double-fronted fridge freezers are uncommon, but I’d venture a guess at most UK & Western European households having a freezer of some sort - either a tall fridge/freezer unit or two separate under-counter units.
A friend living there in a house did have a traditional upright fridge freezer. But she also said only households typically had those. Not apartments.
In England, flats often do have Fridge Freezers. I’ve never not had one.
Like a full freezer?
Must be different in Wales. Which is surprising.
Usually like 2 draws, or 2 and a small drawer. Usually it’s about 50:50, or 60:40 fridge:freezer.
Now something important about Wales (and I’ve heard this applies to other European countries) is that the big fridges and freezers common in the U.S are not common there.
I’ve lived in central Europe all my life and all apartments I remember living in had fridges similar to this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bosch_Electronic_no_frost_fridge_freezer_(2019)_06.jpg (on the top is the fridge, on the bottom the freezer)
Smaller fridges where the freezer is only located on one shelf in the fridge are a thing too, I’ve seen them in vacation apartments, but I think only people with extremely limited space in their kitchen would get one of these for their homes.
Well I was a student. I was in a 1 bedroom apartment. I also looked at about 6 places before renting this one. They all had mini fridges. Perhaps it’s different in other parts of Europe. This was the UK and more specifically, Wales.
Yes, that makes sense that very small apartments would also have very small kitchens where you’d have these kinds of fridges. Point is, most people do have much bigger ones, even in Europe. :)
Well Europe is big. Maybe it’s a UK thing. I only lived in Wales and was told it was common there.
I live in the UK, and in every flat or house I’ve lived here, from 1-bedroom to 3-bedroom ones, we had full-size fridges like the one linked higher up in this comment chain.
So maybe the tiny fridge is just your social circles, or tiny studio flats or somesuch?
(Edit: I specifically live in Scotland, but I can’t imagine a reason that people would have different fridge sizes in Wales.)
Okay but what about Wales specifically. You said UK. So England , Scotland?
Sorry, edited my original comment to say I live in Scotland specifically. But Wales is the same. The UK countries mostly differ in politics, our lifestyles are basically identical.
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