Captain Birds Eye Has Been Replaced By A Woman For The First Time In History

Captain Birds Eye will be replaced for a limited period of time by a real frozen food hero - a 24-year-old foster carer.

Charlotte Carter-Dunn, newly crowned as 'Captain Charlotte', has been selected to replace the famous brand icon after impressing judges in a nationwide competition to find someone that uses their freezer in clever ways to trim money of their weekly food budget and save on food waste.

Charlotte, who lives in Gloucestershire where she looks after two foster children, stood out from over 500 competition entrants when she did an incredible impersonation of the famous seafarer.

Charlotte said: "I'm delighted to have won the competition and can't believe I will be replacing the iconic Captain Birds Eye on packs - it's all very surreal.

"As a foster carer, meal times can be a little hectic but shopping frozen helps me to cut back on the food we waste and have easy meals on the table in no time.

"My freezer has been even more of a God send during lockdown as it's enabled us to reduce our shopping trips. I hope that sharing my frozen hacks will help other families get the most out of their freezer."

Charlotte's frozen food tips include:

• Using lots of frozen vegetables in cooking and notice no difference in terms or taste and texture - plus you can take the amount you need and it saves throwing away veg that's going off.
• Freeze any leftovers from meals and at the end of the month I make 'iffits' for dinner - if it's there, eat it. This means saving money, reducing food waste and making more room in my freezer for the next shop.
• Keep easy frozen meal components in the freezer for when you don't fancy cooking, so you don't waste money on a takeaway.
• Buy frozen BBQ food. Instead of spending a fortune making numerous homemade dishes to suit different family members, simply pop some frozen fish or meat in the oven and finish it off on the BBQ.
• Split your freezer in three parts so you don't forget anything. They can be separated into: 1. Add ons - in this drawer store your vegetables and potato products that you most regularly add in to meals.
  2. 30-minute wonders - foods that can be popped into the oven and help get dinner in front of the family in next to no time. This could be fish fingers (or as my two foster children call them, freezer tapas!) or a leftover meal.
  3. Not quite ready items - all of your meat, fish and other ingredients that need to be defrosted or added as a component to a recipe.

Richard Walker, Managing Director at Iceland said: "We're delighted to be featuring a real customer on packs of fish fingers to be sold in our stores, reaching families at dinner tables across the UK.

"We know that there are millions of 'tea time captains' who shop with us every week, all of whom are experts in keeping weekly grocery bills down and reducing waste in the kitchen. More and more families are waking up to the benefits of frozen food and Charlotte is a great advocate for switching and saving."

Well done, Charlotte.