A glimpse into the world of Iceland Foods at its annual manager’s conference in Dublin proved an eye opener.

There are few businesses with as much character as frozen food specialist Iceland and founder Malcolm Walker typifies the attitude which runs through the business. From arriving on stage in a New York yellow taxi to front a staff holiday competition to appearing in a spoof video of The Royle Family as Jim Royle, Walker gave Retail Week a glimpse into the weird and wacky world of its Deeside head office at the Iceland managers conference this week.

Taking place in Dublin, Walker embraced the stereotypes of the Emerald Isle doing an Irish jig with a pint of Guinness in his hand and sent staff out to ‘find the Craic’ in Ireland’s capital as part of a task to create a mock-up newspaper front page. The store managers showed Retail Week a thing or two with a front page stories which told of Iceland’s success and store service in Dublin. Top marks go to the cheeky store types who create the ‘Back, Sack and Craic’. The Irish Sun’s journalists must be quaking in their boots.

The highlight of the three day conference had to be the closing gala dinner. Some 1,000 staff decked out in their sequinned finery took to the dancefloor to groove along to a performance by half naked male dancers in fluorescent body paint while the former boss of an unnamed sofa business was spotted jiving to Wheatus’ Teenage Dirtbag.

Walker remains the idol of his 23,000-strong workforce and the effervescence chucklesome boss David Brent dearly wished he could be.