The frozen food retailer Iceland is sending a “high-level delegation” to Reykjavik this week in an attempt to thaw relations with the Icelandic government after it launched legal action against the chain over the use of its name.

Iceland Foods is urgently seeking a meeting with Iceland’s foreign ministry to set out “constructive proposals” that could help break the deadlock and resume a longstanding “peaceful coexistence” that it says has prevailed for nearly half a century.

Iceland is challenging Iceland Foods’ exclusive ownership of the European-wide trademark registration for the word Iceland, which it says is preventing the country’s companies from promoting goods and services abroad.

The Icelandic government claims the supermarket has “aggressively pursued” and won multiple cases against companies that use the word Iceland as part of its trademark, “even in cases when the products and services do not compete”.

The supermarket’s founder and chief executive, Malcolm Walker, said on Tuesday: “A high-level delegation from Iceland [Foods] is preparing to fly to Reykjavik this week to begin negotiations, and we very much hope for a positive response and an early resolution of this issue.”

The retailer’s company secretary and legal director, Duncan Vaughan, will be leading the delegation in the next few days, but it will not include Walker.

Walker said: “We registered Iceland as our company name in 1970 and we have coexisted with the country called Iceland very happily ever since. They have made no contact with us to raise any concerns about trademark issues since 2012.

“We have no desire whatsoever to stand in the way of Iceland the country making use of their own name to promote their own products, so long as it does not conflict or cause confusion with our own business. I am sure there is ample scope for an agreement that will allow both parties to continue to live and work amicably alongside each other.”

The company, whose headquarters are in Deeside, has more than 800 stores in the UK and employs more than 23,000 staff. It holds a Europe-wide trademark registration for the word, and Iceland the country is seeking to invalidate the registration on the basis that it is “exceptionally broad and ambiguous in definition, often rendering the country’s firms unable to describe their products as Icelandic”.

In a circular released last week, the government stated: “The government of Iceland is concerned that our country’s businesses are unable to promote themselves across Europe in association with their place of origin – a place of which we are rightly proud and enjoys a very positive national branding.”

In an explanatory statement, the retailer added that it did not simply take its name from the Nordic state, but has a long history of close and friendly involvement with the country.

“For seven years from 2005, Iceland Foods was under the control of Icelandic investors and later Icelandic banks. This relationship came to an end with the £1.5bn management buyout of the company in 2012, but Iceland the company has continued to have a warm relationship with Iceland the country through the ownership of three Iceland stores there, export sales of Iceland products to other retailers throughout the country, and sponsorship of the Icelandic national team in this year’s European football championships.”



The retailer claimed “the closeness and friendliness of relations” was underlined when Walker welcomed then Icelandic prime minister, Halldór Ásgrimsson, on an official visit to Iceland’s Fulham Road store in south-west London in 2006.