Iceland has begun its new vocational training at the privately-owned HMP Oakwood in Featherstone where prisoners get the chance to ‘gain work experience’ and ‘adjust to the outside world’.
The newly built Iceland store at the prison is part of its Cherry Blossom marketplace, which also houses a café, a health foods shop, a home furnishings shop, and a sportswear store.
Iceland has opened a branch inside HMP Oakwood to give jobs to the inmates, who can also spend vouchers on food and drinks sold in the store.
The category C training prison holds more than 2,100 men, and at least 20 of them will work in the marketplace in a number of roles – these include baristas, industrial cleaners, kitchen porters at the café ‘Hopeful Grounds’, and in customer services, warehousing and packing roles at the Iceland store.
Freshly baked goods are served up at the coffee shop, Hopeful Grounds, in the marketplace.
Under the initiative, prisoners who earn currency for good behaviour can swap ‘Monopoly-style cash’ for some of Iceland‘s most popular goods which are not available on the prison wings, according to The Times.