Malcolm Walker, the founder and his son Richard Walker the current chairman are (for such an ordinary seeming supermarket) surprisingly progressive and have often spearheaded sustainability and corporate responsibility campaigns. Malcolm Walker was an active member of Greenpeace and Iceland worked with Greenpeace on several campaigns over the years.
Well, ah, selectively progressive: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-21508758
> Mr Walker had been asked to explain why Iceland burgers passed British tests for equine DNA but failed the Irish tests.
> He replied: "Well, that's the Irish, isn't it?"
so his big bad mistake was to make a remark about how the Irish are more picky than the Great Brits about having horse meat in their burgers?
Richard Walker tried to become a Conservative MP, but when no constituency party selected him as their candidate defected to Labour, who put him in the House of Lords.