A 2kg bag of ice cubes from the supermarket Iceland has been named the top trending order in the UK on Deliveroo for 2026, beating pizza, pharmacy items and restaurant signature dishes.
The delivery firm published its annual Deliveroo 100 list on Monday 9 November. The Guardian reported that the ranking blends year-on-year order growth, local order volume and customer ratings. So it measures momentum, not raw sales.
Other outlets reported it as the most delivered item. AOL’s write-up of the Deliveroo report said it was the first grocery item ever to head the list. Sorbet, mango slices and milkshakes were close behind.
Cold comfort at a price
In an Iceland store, the bag costs £1. The Guardian calculated that once Deliveroo adds its surcharge, small-order fee, delivery fee, bag charge and service charge, the total can reach £8.
That is a 700% markup for frozen water, bought in a country where most freezers already make it for free. The convenience premium was clearly not a barrier.
Iceland’s ice also placed second in Deliveroo’s global ranking, according to the Guardian. London was the location listed against the entry.
The rest of the UK top 10 reads like a summer diary. Brit Brief’s list of the top 10 puts a Morrisons mango sorbet in Glasgow fourth and Boots allergy tablets in London sixth. Further down the longer top 30 sit 40 denier tights from Accessorize and an eyelash curler from Boots.
Second place went to a diavola, a spicy salami pizza, from the independent restaurant Monte Forte in Horsham, West Sussex. NationalWorld reported that a spokesman for the restaurant called appearing alongside big names “a bit surreal”.
The summer behind the spike
The backdrop is not in dispute. The Met Office confirmed on Tuesday 1 September that summer 2026 was the UK’s warmest since records began in 1884, with a mean temperature of 16.5C, according to its own figures.
ITV News reported that 54 Met Office weather stations broke their all-time daily maximum records. Met Office scientists also found that climate change made such a summer around 130 times more likely.
The peak came on 13 August, when Kew Gardens reached 38.1C, Brit Brief reported.
Jeff Wemyss, Deliveroo’s vice president and general manager for the UK and Ireland, put it simply, according to London Now. “The UK’s hottest summer on record had us reaching for the ice and Brits did not mess about,” he said.
What a bag of ice tells us
Ice is a useful kind of purchase for an app. It is cheap, bulky, and needed at once, and it is useless if it arrives late. A party is under way, a drink is warming, and the shop is a hot walk away. Nobody budgets for that moment, so nobody argues with the fees.
That is the impulse-spending angle, and it is an uncomfortable one. A £1 item becomes a £7 or £8 decision because the alternative is effort. Deliveroo’s own list shows how far its business has moved from restaurant meals, and the company said the UK Deliveroo 100 is now 10 years old.
The irony was not lost on the Guardian, which framed the trend as a row between two sides of the same person. One side defends spontaneity. The other points at the climate emergency, and at the fuel burned to bring a bag of cubes across town.
There is no data in the Deliveroo release on how many bags were ordered, or how many of those arrived in a heatwave. Those figures were not published.
There is a review on Iceland’s website that sums up one customer’s view. Trevor P gave the ice five stars and said it was “better than anyone else’s”.
The Guardian noted the other side of the season’s rush: it is now November, and the app’s next trending item may well be soup.
Sources: The Guardian, AOL, NationalWorld, London Now, Brit Brief, Met Office, ITV News
This story was compiled by the MDW Newsdesk with AI-assisted tools, using the reporting credited above.
