Iceland delivers record profits

Iceland foods Group, the frozen food specialist, posted record profits and sales last year after its biggest store opening programme for 21 years. The group, which includes 730 Iceland stores and 46 under the Cooltrader banner, opened 74 new stores last year, including 51 former Woolworths.

Malcolm Walker, Iceland's chief executive, said: "This is the fifth year of strong growth my colleagues and I have delivered since we returned to manage the business in February 2005."

For the year to 26 March, the frozen food retailer delivered pre-tax profits up by 19.4 per cent to £135.4m, on total sales up by 10.4 per cent to £2.26bn.

The group's underlying sales grew by 4.3 per cent last year, but this was lower than the barnstorming growth of 16 per cent in 2008/09. An Iceland spokesman said it had been up against four years of "double digit" like-for-like sales growth and there was food price deflation in 2009/10.