Iceland Home Delivery

The problem

My household goes through fourteen litres of milk a week. That's approximately twenty-five pints. Which is four enormous plastic bottles. Which is a lot of milk - an entire buggyful of the stuff. Milk is heavy. We don't have a car. I don't want to have to go to the shops every day.

The solution

Iceland home delivery! If you spend over £25 in one go, they'll pack your shopping for you and cart the whole lot round to your house for free.

I've tried internet shopping but it did my head in trying to hunt down bargains while the kids rampaged around me. I was clicking all over the place. This way I can take them on an expedition, tire them out pushing the trolley and avoid RSI at the same time. Since Iceland is just round the corner, it's actually quicker than going online as well.

Sure, the choice of fresh food isn't vast but it's not like I have time to cook anyway. Iceland is better than almost anywhere for stocking the freezer and there's a decent selection of things like bread, tins, cereal, alcohol and biscuits. With all that dealt with, it's easy enough to nip somewhere else for the unusual things and little extras.

How it works

1. Go round the shop filling your trolley.
2. Take it to the checkout.
3. Assistants pack your shopping into plastic bags according to category (frozen, refrigerated or general groceries).
4. You pay for it and arrange a two hour delivery slot (nearly always the same day provided you shop before lunch, the van isn't broken and it's not December).
5. You go home.
6. The bags get labelled and then stored at the correct temperature.
7. Your shopping is brought to your door even if you live at the top of a tenement. (Although the driver will look happier if you don't).

The shopping gets manhandled a fair amount so I usually take easily crushed stuff home with me myself - eggs, fresh fruit, salad and yogurts. Everything else is fine.

Reliability

I have had well over two hundred deliveries and I can only think of about four occasions when the delivery slot was missed. Two of those occasions were only by a few minutes and the other two involved the delivery being cancelled and re-scheduled for the following day. I've had a bag of shopping go temporarily missing once and received a bag of someone else's shopping once. One time a bag full of jars split halfway up the tenement stairs. (The driver really didn't look happy). That's a pretty stonking success rate overall.

Pros

You get to choose your own shopping...
...but it gets delivered to the house...
...like magic!
Cheap.
Great choice of frozen food.

Cons

Limited (but adequate) choice of everything else.
Uses lots of plastic bags.
The bags have '...because Mums are heroes!' printed on them. (Grrr...)

Conclusion: Would struggle to live without it.

Rating: 5/5