Iceland is launching a new free food initiative that will give items away to online customers at no cost.
In an effort to prevent waste on products approaching expiry, the budget frozen food retailer has said that its new scheme will offer shoppers half a million pounds worth of food for free every year.
The 'Free on Last Day of Life' initiative will give away more than 1.3 million items that would otherwise be chucked into landfills in a bid to reduce food waste.
All food items ordered and delivered by Iceland have previously had a shelf life of at least two days.
The launch across all 1,000 of the supermarket's sites follows a successful trial in 40 stores with more than 17,000 items given away for free and customers receiving an average refund of £1.58 per order.
Iceland Foods managing director, Richard Walker, said: "Reducing food waste is a huge priority for us as we continue to reduce our impact on the environment.
"We know that shelf life plays a big role in the creation of surplus food so we to have find an innovative way to combat this within our stores and via our online shopping."
How does it work?
The process does not require any additional action by the customer. If an item ordered is the only one left and has the same day date it will be scanned, labelled and placed in the shopping cart as normal.
The customer will be made aware of the free item ahead of delivery and will not be charged the original price.
All chilled, fresh, cakes, bread and morning goods will be included in the scheme.
