Iceland isn’t giving away free food

A post from the Facebook page ‘Iceland Foods UK’, shared over 14,000 times, claims the supermarket chain Iceland is giving away £35 of frozen food to people who share and comment on the post. 

The post reads: “We have thousands of frozen food products due to expire, normally we would bin it all. We thought we'd change our ways and start doing things a little different as we know times are tough at the moment. Instead of throwing it all away we will be packing it into boxes and sending everyone who shares+comments by April 13th each a box containing some frozen food goodies worth up to £35. (Sent next day)”.

However, there are several clues that this post is not real. Firstly, the viral post is the only one ever to be posted by the Facebook page. The image used to illustrate the post comes from a 2019 article in Hull Live. 

And ‘Iceland Foods UK’ is not the supermarket’s official Facebook page. There’s no mention of the promotion on the actual, verified, Iceland Foods page.

Iceland does have an initiative which gives away free food. The “Free on Last Day of Life” scheme means online shoppers aren’t charged for items sent with only one day of shelf life, but this does not require sharing a Facebook post. 

We have contacted Iceland for comment.

We’ve written several times before about fake promotions on Facebook, including others featuring Iceland.

Image via Alwyn Ladell on Flickr